Frederick Walker, A.R.A., O.W.S.

Humphrey Roberts by 1885 and remaining with him until 1901;
R.E. Tatham;
Christie's, 7 March 1908, lot 88 to 'C. Davis';
Sir Thomas Glen-Coats Bt., and thence by descent to the Misses E. and L. Glen-Coats;
Christie's, 13 March 1973, lot 128 to 'Leger';
Sir John Paul Getty, K.B.E., London, sold by his executors Christie's, 24 November 2004, lot 13, where purchased by the present owner 

Old Water-colour Society, Winter Exhibition, 1873-4, no.33;
London, Rembrandt Gallery, Watercolour Drawings of Frederick Walker, 1885, no.8;
Whitechapel, St Jude's School-House, Fine Art Loan Exhibition, 1891, no.76;
Royal Academy, Works by the Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of he British School; Including a Collection of Water Colour Drawings illustrating the Progress of the Art of Water Colour in England, Winter 1891, no.154;
London, Fine Art Society, The Water-Colour Art of the Nineteenth Century by One Hundred Painters, 1901, no.131;
London, Leger Galleries, March 1973

Athenaeum, 6 December 1873, p.736;
Times, 18 December 1873, p.3;
Spectator, 20 December 1873, p.1615;
J.G. Marks, Life and Letters of Frederick Walker, A.R.A., 1896, pp.272, 276, 278-80, 320;
Claude Phillips, Frederick Walker and his Works, 1897, p.59

STRUCTURE The paper is sound and there are no signs of cockling or foxing. There are a few areas in the sky where old restorations have discoloured and these could probably be improved by being removed and reapplied. FRAME Contained in a simple gilt frame and under glass.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

‘Frederick Walker's 'Harbour of Refuge' has always seemed to me to be the best watercolour drawing extant. In dignity of subject, in beauty of colour and technique, it seems to attain the highest summit of watercolour art, and as far as I can see is likely to stay there 'King of the Castle'.’ Albert Goodwin writing in the introduction to the catalogue for the Fine Art Society, The Watercolour-Colour Art of the Nineteenth Century by One Hundred Artists, 1901

The Harbour of Refuge is a reduced watercolour version of Walker's most famous work (Tate), an oil painting which was his last major exhibit, appearing at the Royal Academy in 1872.  It is a wonderfully evocative study of English life with allegorical undertones about mortality and passing time. The painting was a great success with the public and critics and an etching by Robert Walker Macbeth enabled the image to be widely disseminated. The oil was presented to the National Gallery by Sir William Agnew in 1893 and was transferred to the newly-founded Tate Gallery four years later.

The origins of the picture began in 1870 when Walker's friend William Quiller Orchardson was staying with fellow artist Birket Foster at Witley in Surrey. The two artists attended the local church and saw 'a group of old, bent labourers on a long bench in front of the pulpit, reposing in the gleams of sunlight that lightened the gloom of the place' (J.G. Marks, Life and Letters of Frederick Walker, A.R.A., p. 238) and simultaneously thought of Walker who was duly summoned to Witley to witness the scene with his own eyes. Although Walker agreed that the scene inspired the type of subject he liked to paint, he did not see it as one that would be an entire subject for a picture. He decided to use studies of these figures in the background of a more complex scene with an outdoor setting, rather than one set in the gloom of the church. The setting was the quadrangle of the seventeenth century alms-houses of Jesus Hospital at Bray near Maidenhead. Female figures, representative of the prime and close of life, walk beside a wall encroached by ivy – a traditional symbol of clinging memory. Placed symbolically at the end of the course of the wall is a pair of shears (to snip the thread of life). The gardener with his scythe is a clear symbol of the passing of time.  

This watercolour was painted through the summer and autumn of 1873, to be contributed as Walker's only exhibit at the Old Water-Colour Society's exhibition the following winter. On 27 September he wrote to John William North, a fellow artist and friend: 'I am finishing a very careful and elaborate watercolour of the "Harbour of Refuge"; been at it ever since I came from Devonshire, and it's almost been the death of me, especially as I had to refuse that invitation to the salmon and the North. I suppose I shall have my reward some day. The watercolour is 3 feet long, the most important I've yet done.' Despite telling North that he was close to completion, he was still working on the watercolour in October and it is likely that it was only finished close to the sending-in date in November. On 9 October 1873 Walker told North: 'I have been going at the watercolour so hard - at the mower for instance - and it looks so much better than when you saw it.'

For several critics, the watercolour surpassed the oil; the correspondent for Spectator assessed it as 'an improvement upon it in more ways than one' and it was described by Frederick George Stephens in the Athenaeum, as 'a fine picture, differing from the larger painting in points which are interesting to students'. The Times commented: ‘Probably no drawing here makes so strong an appeal to the imagination, and certainly none leaves such an impression on the memory as F. Walker's 'Haven of Rest' [sic], a repetition in water-colour of his oil picture of last year, with some improvements in detail, particularly in the expression of the young girl who is leading the old woman, who strikes us as altogether more sympathetic in the drawing than in the picture.’

The high esteem in which the picture was held was undiminished by Walker's premature death from TB aged thirty-five. In an essay of 1897, the art critic and keeper of the Wallace Collection Sir Claude Phillips, suggested that the watercolour 'perhaps in some respects an improvement on the original, of which it retains the beauties unimpaired, while reduction of size gives greater concentration. The movement of the mower - but this may be fancy - appears in this version rather truer to nature.'