A Family of Gordon Setters

Original Oil Painting on Canvas 1840

by Richard Ansdell RA (1815 - 1885)

The present lot was valued at $12,000 - $16,000 USD for inclusion in 'The Dog Sale' Bonhams, New York, 10th February 2009, Lot 177.

• Auction record £478,400 GBP ($920,000 USD)
• The present lot has been independently authenticated by Sarah Kellam and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ansdell's work.
• Signed and dated lower right
• 'Gallery' condition - see condition report below
• Painting - 52cm (20 1/2") x 42cm (16 1/2")
• Frame - 68cm (27") x 58cm (23")

Provenance

- Bonhams New York, 10th February 2009, Lot 177  for $12,000 - $16,000 USD (see http://www.bonhams.com/usa/auction/16266/lot/177/)

- Christie's, London, January 24, 1975, lot 171.

- Sotheby's, Belgravia, November 17, 1938, lot 316.

Lot Notes

An important original oil painting by one of 19th century England's greatest animal painters depicting a family of Gordon Setters in a barn interior.  The quality is, as one would expect from Ansdell's work, simply outstanding.  The painting has a wonderful provenance having been sold or offered for sale by each of the World's top three auction houses in the last seventy five years.  In addition the painting was independently authenticated by Sarah Kellam prior to it's inclusion in the Bonhams sale of 2009, Kellam is the artist's great-great granddaughter and the World's foremost authority on his work - this painting will be included in Kellam's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Ansdell's work.  The painting is signed and dated lower right.

Ansdell's work is highly collectible realising tens of thousands of pounds at auction. Please see the snapshots of auction results in the photograph section of this listing.

Condition

The painting is in very fine 'gallery' condition; the canvas lined in the late 20th century, clean and most attractive.  Sarah Kellam, who has authenticated the present lot has pointed out that it has been reduced from its original size of 24 x 29 in. and that the signature has been incorporated from its original position in the lower left corner.  The painting is well framed and ready to hang.

Artist Information

Richard Ansdell was an animal painter, son of Thomas Griffith Ansdell, block maker, and his wife, Ann, was born in Liverpool on 11 May 1815 and baptized on 5 July at St Peter's Church, Liverpool. He attended the Blue Coat School, Liverpool—whose assembled governors he later painted, in 1845 (Blue Coat School collection)—until the age of thirteen, when he trained under W. C. Smith, ‘profile and portrait painter, Chatham, Kent’ (Bennett, 22). In 1835 he entered the Liverpool Academy Schools. He first exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1835, continuing to show there as an associate, a member, and eventually its president (1845–6) until 1852, when he resigned (with others) over the award of the £50 prize to William Holman Hunt for Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus, a work deemed by The Times to exemplify the ‘strange disorder of the mind or the eyes’ (The Times, 7–13 May 1851) afflicting the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. On 14 June 1841, at St Peter's, Liverpool, he married Maria Romer of Liverpool, whose brother William may have been Ansdell's assistant.  Ansdell first made his name in and around Lancashire for his ability to combine meticulous portraits of people and their horses and hounds with local landscape. He received commissions from such patrons as the earls of Sefton and Derby, Earl Spencer, and Joseph Mayer of Liverpool, notably for large groups such as The Waterloo Cup Coursing Meeting and Shooting Party in the Highlands (both 1840, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). The largest of these works is Country Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Bristol (1842, Museum and Art Gallery, Salford), 16 feet wide, which includes 125 portraits of prominent landowners with the latest agricultural machinery in the foreground. Private commissions for smaller, less formal paintings, such as Jonathan Blundell with his Greyhounds (c.1850–c.1855, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), inspired livelier work.  From the 1840s Ansdell travelled in the north of England and particularly in Scotland, where he painted shooting and stalking subjects, and achieved uncommon success in making vigorous scenes out of sheep, notably in Turning the Drove, Aviemore and the Grampians in the Distance (exh. RA, 1851; priv. coll.). Like other animal painters, he tackled animal subjects from history and literature, such as The Death of Sir William Lambton at the Battle of Marston Moor (exh. RA, 1842; Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston) and The Fight for the Standard (during the battle of Waterloo; exh. RA, 1848). More unusual is The Hunted Slaves (pursued by bloodhounds), exhibited at the RA in 1861 with a quotation from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Slave in the Dismal Swamp (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Ansdell collaborated with Thomas Creswick over more tranquil rural scenes, notably England, a Day in the Country (exh. British Institution, 1851), and with John (Spanish) Phillip, with whom he visited Spain in 1857. Ansdell returned to Spain, adding mules to his repertoire and thereafter producing many richly coloured Spanish subjects. Occasionally he collaborated with William Powell Frith, who painted the figures in such pictures as The Keeper's Daughter and Feeding the Calves (1855).  Ansdell was prolific and, from about 1840, prosperous. His pictures (reputedly averaging £750 in price between 1860 and 1884) sold quickly, and many were engraved. In 1847 he moved to London, but retained his love of Lancashire, and in 1861 built a summer house at Lytham St Anne's, the local railway station being named Fairhaven and Ansdell in his honour. Later he spent his summers in Argyll, fishing and steadily painting. The painter John Evan Hodgson considered Ansdell ‘remarkable … if only for his extraordinary industry, facility and productiveness’, describing him as ‘unaffectedly kindly and good-natured’ but noting his ‘proud spirit’: ‘any slights or undue familiarities he resented vehemently, and did not easily forgive’ (Hodgson, 387–8). Having declined to paint Queen Victoria's dogs unless they were brought to his studio, Ansdell received no royal commissions.  Inevitably, Ansdell's work was compared with that of Edwin Landseer (twelve years his senior). Although many of their subjects were similar, their styles were very different, as is evident in a comparison of the works each artist exhibited under the title A Stag at Bay at the RA in 1846. Ansdell lacked Landseer's emotional force and rarely rose above a meticulous but somewhat prosaic manner. Of over a hundred British artists whose work was shown at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855, Ansdell was one of seven who were awarded a gold medal, third class; the large gold medal went to Landseer. It was not an unjust assessment. While continuing to show in Liverpool until 1852, Ansdell also exhibited at the Manchester Royal Institution from 1837 (winning the Heywood gold medal three times), at the British Institution from 1846 to 1865, and, most frequently of all, at the Royal Academy from 1840 until 1885 when, in the last year of his life, he exhibited a picture entitled The Slackened Girth. He was elected an ARA in 1861 and an RA in 1870.  Having retired from London in 1884 to Collingwood Tower, Frimley, near Farnborough, Surrey, Richard Ansdell died there on 20 April 1885. His wife, six sons and two daughters survived him. He was buried on 23 April in Brookwood cemetery, Woking, Surrey. His studio sale at Christies on 19–20 March 1886 included about fifty finished pictures and many studies and sketches, chiefly of Spanish and Scottish subjects. Some of his drawings are in the collection of the British Library, London.

General Information

Hang your investments on the wall

Art has long been regarded as a strong and safe investment. Ellen Kelleher a personal finance reporter for The Financial Times recently wrote an article recommending art, particularly in the $500 - $50,000 range as a sound long term investment with an impressive current average annual increase of 9.7 percent. See Hang your investments on the wall by Ellen Kelleher Published October 22 2010 by the Financial Times.

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1. where the bold coloured text which forms the listing's heading reads 'by' and is followed by the artist's full name (or the artist's initials, if his full name is unrecorded), the work is in our opinion by the artist;
2. where the expression "attributed to" is used, the work is in our opinion possibly a work by the artist, in whole or in part;
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6. where the term "after" is used, the work is in our opinion a copy or pastiche (of any date) of a work by the artist. Where the term 'signed...' is used in our opinion the work has been signed by the artist, where the term 'with signature...' or 'bears signature...' is used in our opinion the signature is by a hand other than that of the artist.