Lot 176: JOHN WHITE ABBOTT

1764 - 1851 AN OAK AT KEDLESTON HALL, DERBYSHIRE Watercolour over pencil with pen and brown ink, original wash-line mount; signed and inscribed verso: an Oak at Kiddlestone [sic] Derbyshire - measured 27 feet in circumfe [sic] - 4 feet above the ground / JWA July 23 1791. 195 by 225 mm

New York, Davis and Langdale, English Watercolors, May-June 1982, no. 1

By descent in the artist's family; sale, London, Sotheby's, 16 March 1978, lot 39; with Spink's, London; with Davis & Langdale, New York; by whom sold to Mrs Vincent Astor (1902-2007)

John White Abbott was Francis Towne’s (1739-1816) most accomplished and committed pupil. Paul Oppé, the great collector and art historian, noted that ‘for a moment at the turn of the eighteenth century [Abbott] obtained a celebrity exceeding that of his master.’1 Abbott was born in Exeter and for many years practised as a surgeon. He drew the present work in the park of Kedleston Hall, seat of the Curzon family since the 12th Century, during his sketching tour of 1791. Thought to be his sole journey outside Devonshire, he visited parts of Derbyshire, the Lake District, Yorkshire and Scotland, during a period of six weeks. 1. P. Oppé, ‘John White Abbott of Exeter (1763-1851)’, Walpole Society, vol XIII, Oxford 1924-1925, p. 67