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oil on board

PROVENANCE

Sale by the artist's executors, Christie's, 8th May 1874, lot 87 (The Fisherman's Daughter and A Boy with a Hawk - study for the picture of 'Bolton Abbey'), sold for 120 gns.;
Mrs Fenning, sold Christie's, 10th July 1970, lot 172, bt. Leggatt for 650 gns.
CATALOGUE NOTE

This sensitive study of a girl is a sketch for one of the figures in Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time (fig. 1.), one of Landseer's most famous compositions which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834. The girl is shown in the finished picture holding a tray on which a fine selection of trout are laid. The model for her portrait was Landeer's sister Jessica, his devoted companion and housekeeper.

Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time was the first history picture which Landseer painted since his successful The Hunting of Chevy Chase which he painted in 1825 for the 6th Duke of Bedford. It was a commission from another important patron, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, a man of great taste with a passion for the arts. Bolton Abbey is situated in the West Riding of Yorkshire on the banks of the river Wharfe. It was founded in the twelfth century as an Augustinian abbey, later passing to the Devonshire family. The Duke clearly expected a prospect of the abbey rather than a historical scene reminiscent of one of Scott's novels. He later wrote that only the great success achieved by the picture "reconciled me to his not having made what I gave him the commission for - namely, a representation of the place." In the picture Landseer depicts the abbott standing in the original gatehouse, a spaniel at his feet. He is shown receiving game from a forester, the falconer's son and the fishman's daughter. As might be expected for such an accomplished painter of animals, the stag, swan, duck and other game are superbly drawn. Both the figures of the fishergirl and the falconer's son (for which Jacob Bell was the model) were separately engraved by William Findon and can stand on their own as examples of Landseer's powers as a portrait painter.