£5,292
Auction: 25 January 2023 at 10:00 GMT
mixed media (pencil; pen and ink; watercolour; bodycolour) some 150 items in total, on various paper and card stocks, various dimensions, including 10 items signed by Wadsworth, the remaining material unsigned but most attributable either to Wadsworth or an associate on external evidence or stylistic grounds:
1) Signed items: a) Design for a Sun-Dial to be executed in Irish-Green Marble with Brass Fitting (watercolour; with caption); b) Design for an embroidered doyley (watercolour; with caption); c) Design for Wadsworth's personal bookplate (black and gold ink with lilac watercolour; mounted); d) Designs for decorative friezes (on a single sheet, red and black ink heightened with gold, possibly gold leaf); e) Repeating foliate design (sepia ink with pencil); f) Calligraphic Christmas card design ('With best wishes from Mr and Mrs J. W. Wadsworth, Xmas 1910' in black ink, with 'Draycott Le Moors, Stoke on Trent' in pencil); g) Cover design for an edition of Dante (black ink and pencil, annotations verso; together with another design, unsigned but near-identical); h-j) Three watercolour views (a country church; a view in the Colosseum; a crooked tree with cottages; the latter with heavy outlining and shading in black ink);
2) Views (watercolours, 13 in total, including wooded landscapes, beach scenes, architectural studies, and boats moored in a harbour);
3) Bookplate designs, including two for Leon V. Solon (on 20 sheets, a few containing multiple designs, together with a few printed specimens);
4) Lettering specimens and copies of illuminated initials from medieval manuscripts (28 sheets, most with multiple designs);
5) Pattern designs after historical fabrics (watercolours, 6 in total, annotated on verso '17th century Italian', 'Italian damask, 17th century', 'Linen, Italian, 16 century', '15 or 16th-century oriental', '16th century Renaissance', 'Velvet, Persian, 17th century');
6) Exhibition catalogue or poster designs for the North Staffordshire Art Society (5 in total), together with 3 similar designs for the Catalogue of the Malvern Art Club Exhibition,1928, woodblocks differentially hand-coloured;
7) Large collection of assorted designs and sketches, including various floral patterns and motifs, a vase, book illustrations and embellishments (including 4 designs for publisher's devices or colophons: 'FINIS' written within scrolling foliate cartouche; two satyrs embracing beneath text 'THE END'; large sketch of an angel and supplicant with the text 'Carl Hentschel & Co. Photo-engravers' at the head; an allegorical female figure with robe and shield beneath text 'Bemrose & Sons Ltd. Printers, Derby & London'), and numerous female figures, several sketches evidently preparatory (approx. 50 in total);
8) 3 engraved Christmas cards from Leon V. Solon addressed in pencil to John Wadsworth (for 1903, 1905 and 1909, spotted); 2 photographs of works by Leon V. Solon (one of Elizabeth I, the other captioned verso 'Le bain des nymphes'), both signed in the negative, mounted and inscribed by Solon to Wadsworth in pencil on mount, heavily spotted; and 1 further engraving inscribed by Solon to Wadsworth in pencil (device for a menu at 'Uplands'?);
9) Other items including: a copy of Wadsworth's Designing from Plant Forms, 1910, first edition, original cloth; 1901-2 syllabus for Macclesfield Techincal and Science School and School of Art (8vo, original decorative wrappers, front cover design signed J. W. Wadsworth); dust jackets possibly designed by Wadsworth, etc. This lot includes a typed letter to Phillips auctioneers from C. J. Hancock requesting a catalogue for the sale.
Provenance: 'The Ceramic Art and Paintings of John and Philip Wadsworth', the auction of their estate, Phillips, Knowle, 8th April 1992, various lots including 55, 89 etc.
Note: John William Wadsworth is best remembered as a designer of ceramics, but this extensive collection of material is an engrossing record of his interest in other fields including book decoration, bookplate design and landscape painting, and promises to reward further study. Born in Macclesfield, Wadsworth studied at Stockport School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1901 he was appointed assistant art director to L. V. Solon at Mintons, designing Secessionist ware, and became full art director soon after in 1905. He was art director at Royal Worcester from 1915 until returning to Mintons in 1935, where he remained until his death.