Paintings by renowned artists – and a chimp – go under the hammer

PAINTINGS by renowned national and international artists – and a chimpanzee – will go under the hammer in Cirencester later this month, at Moore Allen & Innocent’s Selected Picture Sale.

Among the best is a four-and-a-half foot long scene of a sailing ship being launched at Liverpool’s Canada Docks in 1865 by Robert Dudley, which is expected to achieve between £8,000 and £12,000.

It is one of a number the artist painted at the docks: his Canada Timber Docks, Liverpool, Towards the Close of the Day hangs in the city’s Maritime Museum.

From Liverpool to Bath, and collection of over 50 sketches and watercolours by Benjamin Barker, one of the ‘Barkers of Bath’, is being auctioned on behalf of the artist’s great, great, great grand-daughter.

Barker exhibited at the British Institution and the Royal Academy and was part of a dynasty of Bath artists, among whom was his grand-daughter Elizabeth Wallace, examples of whose works are also being auctioned.

Barker’s small preliminary sketches and paintings of rural landscapes, possibly of scenes in Wales during the early 19th century, will be sold in single and multiple lots, with estimates ranging from £50 to £300. Wallace’s still life watercolours are expected to achieve between £150 and £500.

While the Barker brothers were painting in Bath, the Brocas brothers were busy in Dublin. Samuel Frederick Brocas was a landscape artist practising in watercolours and oils, and his work was extensively exhibited, as was that of his three brothers.

A set of six engravings from his watercolours, including famous buildings like the General Post Office and College Green, are expected to achieve between £500 and £800.

A little closer to home, a pair of oils featuring rural scenes around the Malvern Hills by the landscape artist Charles Thomas Burt is being sold on behalf of his great grandchild, and is expected to achieve between £2,000 and £3,000.

Painted in typical Burt style, one features a mother and child watching a flock of sheep, while the other has a couple of lovers beside a horse and roller – presumably taking a romantic lunch break from toiling in the fields.

Meanwhile, a portrait of a cow by Evesham-born artist Richard Whitford is an unusual example. Whitford made his name and living in the second half of the 19th century painting portraits of prize-winning cattle and sheep to accompany the cups and medals of proud owners – Queen Victoria among them.

Most cows and sheep appeared in an almost square form, representing the fashionable fatness of the cow or the shape into which the sheep has been sheared for show. However, the example going to auction features a cow in her natural shape. The portrait is expected to achieve between £1,000 and £1,500.

Finally, from livestock to zoo animals, and a painting by the world-renowned abstract impressionist Beauty the chimp is expected to command between £200 and £300.

Beauty, who resided at Cincinnati Zoo in the 1960s, was at one time the toast of the art world – taking $5,000 on the opening day of her first New York exhibition, in 1961, when paintings sold for between $25 and $95 each.

Beauty, Cincinnati Zoo was keen to point out, worked under ‘free conditions’. She was given cardboard, paper and paints and allowed to express herself through her art.

The auction will be held from 10am on Friday, April 16 at the Norcote salerooms, Cirencester. An online catalogue is available.

Robert Dudley	Benjamin Barker
Elizabeth Wallace	Beauty the chimp
Samuel Frederick Brocas	Charles Thomas Burt
Richard Whitford