Old Masters Day Auction
Old Masters Day Auction
Property from a European Private Collection
Joseph Nicholls
London, a view of the Thames with Westminster Abbey
Lot Closed
July 7, 02:35 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a European Private Collection
Joseph Nicholls
British active 1726 - 1755
London, a view of the Thames with Westminster Abbey
oil on canvas
unframed: 61 x 112 cm.; 24 x 44 in.
framed: 78.8 x 129.5 cm.; 31 x 51 in.
Lady Trent;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 18 June 1976, lot 38, for £4,200;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 7 July 1987, lot 51;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 11 April 1991, lot 83 (as attributed to Joseph Nicholls), for $17,600;
With Owen Edgar Gallery, London;
From whom acquired by the present owner.
This view of Westminster Abbey and the Old Hall borrows heavily from Samuel Scott's renderings of the subject dating to roughly 1742.1 A view by Nicholls from the other side of Westminster Bridge is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.2
Stylistically the painting belongs to the tradition of English urban topography that had developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Dutch painting, and it is an extremely fine, rare example of the sophistication of English view painting before the arrival of Canaletto in 1746.
Despite the evident quality of his work, little is known about Nicholls’ life or career. Scarcely half a dozen works are known by Nicholls, all of which are views of London. They include a View of Charing Cross and Northumberland House, signed and dated 1746 (National Westminster Bank, London), a pair of Views of the Rotunda at Ranelagh, signed and dated 1748 (formerly Melbury House, Dorset), and a View of St. James’s Park and the Mall (Royal Collection), which shows George II and Frederick, Prince of Wales walking in the park, with a view of Westminster Abbey in the distance.
1 These are known in at least three versions, one in the Yale Centre for British Art: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-building-of-westminster-bridge-245261/search/makers:samuel-scott-c17021772-131606/page/2; another in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437643; and one in the Bank of England: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-building-of-westminster-bridge-london-50272/search/makers:samuel-scott-c17021772-131606/page/2.