SIR DAVID WILKIE R.A. (SOTTISH 1785-1841)
STUDY FOR 'THE JEW'S HARP'
Estimate: £4,000 - £6,000
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 112- 206 | Thursday 05 June from 6pm
Description
Signed with initials and dated 1808, oil on panel
Dimensions
17.75cm x 12.75cm (7in x 5in)
Provenance
Painted for Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1755-1831)
Christie's, 12 May 1832, lot 64, where acquired by William Seguier (£44 2s) for Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863) and thence by descent
Sold at an unknown date following the National Gallery of Scotland Ramsay, Raeburn and Wilkie 1951 exhibition
Exhibited:
David Wilkie, 1812, no.23
Royal Academy of Arts, London, Works by Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of the British School, 7 January - 11 March 1884, no.35
Grosvenor Gallery, London, A Century of British Art from 1737 to 1837, 1887-88, no.321
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Sir Henry Raeburn and Other Deceased Painters of the Scottish School, 1901, no.40
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Scottish Art and History, 31 May - 9 July 1912, no.21
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Ramsay, Raeburn and Wilkie, 1951, no.27
Footnote
Hamish Miles and Alex Kidson note in their forthcoming Wilkie monograph, to be published by the Paul Mellon Centre, that this painting is ‘one of the sketches that Lord Mulgrave acquired under an agreement he made with David Wilkie in 1807'. It is evidently a reduction from the prime composition rather than a working sketch, since there is evidence that ‘The Jews Harp’ itself was in a state of rough completion by 15 July 1808, whilst the present work appears to have been carried out between 20 and 22 July. On the last of those days Wilkie noted in his journal: ’To the Admiralty and saw Lord and Lady Mulgrave, and showed them a small sketch of the picture I had begun, which they seemed to like.'