Black chalk, traces of white heightening, inscribed Castle Rock Borrowdale/ Near Keswick/ Sept 1857 on laid paper
205 x 313 mm (8 x 12 in.)
Condition: The paper and chalk are in a very good condition, minor time staining throughout, and a later inscription Bee/ 10 the drawing is hinged in the on the verso to a conservation matt. There are pin holes in the upper left.
The second son of the landscape painter John Linnell, James Thomas Linnell studied at the Royal Academy Schools alongside his two brothers John and William. According to a contemporary biographical dictionary, James Thomas Linnell inherited not a little of his fathers talent, although his palette was perhaps somewhat brighter. He exhibited almost annually at the Royal Academy between 1850 and 1888, at first showing religious subjects in which the landscape predominated; The Temptation in the Wilderness, exhibited in 1850, was followed a year later by Job and the Messengers. By the middle of the decade, however, he was exhibiting mainly landscapes with peasants, farm labourers or children – with titles such as Wheat-Field, Haymakers, Plowing, A Country Road and A Mower whets his Scythe – and it is for these pastoral landscapes that he is best known today. Works by James Linnell are today in the museums of Bradford, Brighton, Cardiff, Gateshead, Harrogate, Leeds, Manchester, Okehampton, Sheffield, Rochdale and Wolverhampton.
Our collection of 6 drawings and watercolours by James Thomas Linnell are comparable to a number of drawings and watercolours such as View near Pen-y-Coed in the vale that leads from Beddgelert, sold at Sothebys London, December 8 2005, lot 183, from the Ingram collection. This work is also in watercolour and of a similar subject matter, and measures 228 x 355 mm. Another comparable chalk drawing is in the University of Lethbridge Art Collection, Alberta, Canada, of Untitled (Sheet of Studies), (accession number 1988.117) the sheet measures 26 x 36 cm and is drawn in cont crayon and black chalk on grey paper. Further comparisons include three watercolours which are with Stephen Ongpin, of the Surrey Landscape in watercolour and bodycolour on blue paper, measuring 36 x 53 cm.
