JAMES WARD, R.A. (DERBYSHIRE 1769-1859 HULL)

The present drawing relates to Ward’s 1808 Royal Academy exhibition entry, no. 210 (Tate Britain) and may be a preparatory study for that work, though as with a pencil drawing showing the same view (with Lowell Libson 2013) it is without the fallen tree trunk in the foreground. The painting was subsequently purchased for 200 guineas by the Rev. John Ward, a Derbyshire clergyman and a distant relative. The present watercolour belonged to John Allnutt (1773-1863), a merchant banker and wine-seller, and a patron of Sir Thomas Lawrence and James Ward. He commissioned Ward to paint his horses, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823. The present drawing was part of a group of albums assembled by Allnutt circa 1850, from which over fifty drawings were sold in these Rooms, 17 November 1987.