Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

William Collins RA (1788-1847)

A Fish Auction on the South Coast of Devonshire

Signed and dated W.Collins/1823 (to the boat)

Oil on canvas

85 x 116cm; 33½ x 45¾in

Provenance:

Commissioned by George Capell-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex (1757-1839), Cassiobury House, in 1823 (250gns);

By descent to Arthur Capell, 6th Earl of Essex (1803-1892), Cassiobury House;

Christie, Manson and Woods, Catalogue of modern pictures, collected early in the century by the late Rt. Hon. George, fifth Earl of Essex, 22 July 1893, lot 42;

Roldan, Buenos Aires, 25 May 1968

Literature:

W. Wilkie Collins, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., RA (London, 1848), vol.I, pp.215-216, vol.II, p.345;

The Athenaeum, no.3431, 29 July 1893, p.169;

Duncan Macmillan, 'A journey through England and Scotland: Wilkie and other influences on French art of the 1820s', in The British Art Journal, (vol.2, no.3, 2001), p.33

Exhibited:

London, The Royal Academy, 1823, no.67

Manchester, Art Treasures Exhibition, May-October 1857, no.611

The 1823 Royal Academy exhibition catalogue describes the scene in the present work as 'A Fish Auction on the South coast of Devonshire, where it is the custom of the fishermen to substitute the dropping of a stone, for the stroke of the auctioneer's hammer'. Although a label on the back says that the work was purchased by Agnews from Christie's in 1862, the painting was still in the collection of the Earls of Essex in 1893, so this appears to be erroneous.