Live Auction 7561Simon Sainsbury The Creation of an English Arcadia
After Samuel Dixon, circa 1800
Lot 217

After Samuel Dixon, circa 1800

Four watercolours of birds perched amongst flowers and fruit including a goldfinch perched upon a branch, with honeysuckle, ranunculus, peony and other flowers, and a white-headed parrot with butterflies and grapes.

Closed18 June 2008

Price Realised

GBP 22,500

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After Samuel Dixon, circa 1800
Four watercolours of birds perched amongst flowers and fruit including a goldfinch perched upon a branch, with honeysuckle, ranunculus, peony and other flowers, and a white-headed parrot with butterflies and grapes.
pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour and bodycolour with gum arabic, one heightened with gold
11 x 16 in. (28 x 40.6 cm.), one fragmentary watermark
set of four (4)

Acquired from Michael & Margaret Parker Antiques, 10 February 1976.

Specialist note

The present watercolours closely follow the work of Samuel Dixon of Dublin (d. 1769), who was famous for his Foreign and Domestick Birds, a collection of embossed bird and flower pictures issued between 1748 and 1755. These pictures incorporated a technique which Dixon called basso relievo, whereby parts of the design were raised by means of a copper plate and then coloured in gouache. Dixon's first basso relievo set of twelve formal flower arrangements was advertised in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 26 April 1748, which invited the 'Nobility and Gentry' to purchase these pictures that were 'not only ornamental in Lady's chambers but useful to paint and draw after or imitate in shell or needle work'.