ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH NICHOLLS (BRITISH, ACTIVE 1726-1755)
VIEW OF A COUNTRY HOUSE IN A PARK, WITH FIGURES ON A WALK
£9,750
British and European Paintings
Auction: 24 May 2017 at 12:00 BST
Description
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
76cm x 94cm (30in x 37in)
Footnote
Note: The enigmatic artist Joseph Nicholls, sometimes known as Nichols or Nickols, is known as the painter of a number of topographical views of London, in particular around Chelsea, Vauxhall and West London and can be seen as a forerunner of Canaletto and his British equivalents, Samuel Scott and William Marlow.
Comparatively little is known about Nicholls. He was from Bengeo in Hertfordshire, the son of a husbandman, and apprenticed to Thomas Batten in 1713. He was painting
views of London views by 1738 and two of them - "Stocks Market" and "Fountain in the Temple" - were engraved in
that year. A pair of views of Twickenham by Nicholls are in the Mellon Collection at Yale, one of Pope's Villa and the other Orleans House.
A painting by Nicholls in the collection of the Royal Bank of Scotland depicts Charing Cross in 1746. Another of the Fountain in the Middle Temple is in the collection of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.
Another work by Nicholls, originally on the collection of the Earl of Ilchester depicting a View of the Rotunda, Ranelagh, sold at Christies in 1940 and 1948. A further painting of Ranelagh House, attributed to Nicholls, was offered by Christies in 2002.
Nicholls worked as an illustrator for works including Captain Johnson's Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, etc published in 1734 and it seems probable that he also worked as a scenery painter as he is mentioned in the context of the decoration of Vauxhall Gardens as the painter of 'a beautiful landscape painting of ruins and running water'.