William Strutt

William Strutt (1825-1915) Nubian mending saddle Signed, titled and inscribed Pencil with watercolour 23.5 x 33.5cm; 9¼ x 13¼in Paper discoloured and bleached in some areas, possibly from glue applied to the reverse, a few small fox marks Estimate: £100-150 Lot: 66 Sale: Oil Paintings, Watercolours & Prints (PW230311)

LOT 263 WILLIAM STRUTT BRITISH, 1825 - 1915 THE EMBARRASSED MOTHER, A SCRAP FROM THE COUNTRY 16,000—20,000 AUD Signed and inscribed with title on label on reverse Oil on canvas Painted circa 1867 EXHIBITED Society of British Artists, London, 1867, cat. 295 (£12) LITERATURE AND REFERENCES Heather Curnow, The Life and Art of William Strutt, Martinborough, New Zealand: Alistair Taylor, 1980, (cat. 36), p. 192

LOT 27 WILLIAM STRUTT BRITISH, 1825 - 1915 FOLIO OF DRAWINGS 18,000—28,000 AUD CATALOGUE NOTE LIMITED LIABILITY Signed William Strutt (lower left); inscribed with title (upper right) 13.7 by 14.3cm PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 NEWSPAPER BOY Signed William Strutt (lower left); inscribed with title (lower centre) 11.9 by 15.4cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 RENAISSANCE RIDER AND HIS SQUIRES Signed William Strutt. (lower left) 15.6 by 25.3cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY Inscribed with title 20.9 by 18.6cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 OLD OAK Signed William Strutt (lower left) 15.2 by 10.3cm PROVENANCE The artist By descent to his grand-daughter, Margaret Strutt-Davies (bears authentication on label on reverse) HOSANNA Signed Wm Strutt invt. (lower left); inscribed with title (lower centre) 29 by 33cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 LITTLE SAMUEL AND HIS KID (STUDY FOR 'THE BOY SAMUEL AMID THE OFFERINGS AT THE TABERNACLE', 1872) Inscribed with title (lower centre) 27 by 17.5cm PROVENANCE Trevor Bussell Fine Art Gallery, Sydney Purchased from the above in 1991 SUFFER THE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME 13.5 by 11.3cm PROVENANCE Trevor Bussell Fine Art Gallery, Sydney Purchased from the above in 1991 APPLE BLOSSOM Inscribed with title and dated May 21st 1887 (lower right) 17.5 by 26.8cm PROVENANCE Private collection, New South Wales Sotheby's Chester, March 1991 (part of collection of works by William Strutt and Alfred William Strutt) Trevor Bussell Fine Art Gallery, Sydney Purchased from the above in 1991 STUDY: BLACKBERRIES AND AUTUMN LEAVES Inscribed indistinctly (upper left centre) 15.3 by 24.8cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1991 ANTELOPE Inscribed Oryx Bieca (lower left) 12.5 by 17.8cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 EQUINE ANTLOPE Inscribed with title (lower centre) 19 by 15.8cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 STUDY: GNU Dated Oct 22nd/97 (lower left 12.8 by 18.3cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 STUDY FOR 'SENTINELS OF EMPIRE' SIgned and dated William Strutt / April 12 1901 / & 17th (lower right 17.3 by 19.4cm PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 STUDY: DEER Inscribed T / 73 (lower left) 16.3 by 26.5cm PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 TIGER AND CROCODILE Inscribed with title (lower left) 20 by 28cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 STUDY OF A RIDER (STUDY FOR 'A PILGRIMAGE TO CANTERBURY IN THE 14TH CENTURY') 19.3 by 12cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 STUDIES OF DIAMOND AND RATTLE SNAKES Inscribed Diamond Snak, N. S. Wales and Rattle Snake, N. America (lower left) 12 by 19.3cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 ARCTIC FOX Inscribed with title and dated Nov 1877 (lower centre) 18.6 by 15.5cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 JESTER AND A MAN OF LETTERS (STUDY FOR 'A PILGRIMAGE TO CANTERBURY IN THE 14TH CENTURY') 13.1 by 19.5cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 STUDY: SHEEP Signed W Strutt (lower left) 17.4 by 25cm PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 ANTELOPE AND BUFFALO 17.5 by 27cm PROVENANCE The artist By descent to Miss Clark Trevor Bussell Fine Art Gallery, Sydney Purchased from the above in 1985 GAZELLE. EGYPT Inscribed with title (lower left) 9.8 by 17.9cm CALF FEEDING 11 by 20cm GAZELLE Inscribed with title (lower right) 17 by 16.4cm GAZELLE Inscribed with title (lower right) 17 by 16.4cm GAZELLE Inscribed with title (lower right) 15.8 by 12.5cm ANTELOPES Inscribed with title (lower left); dated 1889 (lower right 17.3 by 26.5cm PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 NUBIANS ON DROMEDARIES Inscribed with title (lower centre); dated July. 1878 (lower right) 27.9 by 21cm PROVENANCE Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 8 November 1978, lot 1094 Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 HORSE IN LANDSCAPE Bears authentication signed by Margaret Strutt-Davies on reverse 7.7 by 15.3cm CALF IN ESSEX Signed and dated Wm Strutt 1843 (lower right); inscribed with title (lower left) PROVENANCE Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 24 May 1978, lot 346 Toorak Auction's, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1985 ANTELOPE 7.2 by 17.1cm TOMSONS ANTELOPE Bears title lower centre 9 by 14.6cm LEWES STOCKS Inscribed for relative proportions and dated August 1889 (lower left) 16.8 by 26.5cm PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD Signed W. Strutt( lower right) PROVENANCE Crawford Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 COPPER BUSH Inscribed with title (lower left); dated Sept. 22 / 77 (lower right) 19.6 by 20cm STUDY OF LEAVES 16.4 by 22.6cm Executed circa 1874 PROVENANCE Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne Purchased from the above in 1984 EXHIBITED William Strutt, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 6 February - 12 July 1981, cat. 50 (36)

Signed lower left Oil on canvas PROVENANCE Ernest Whitcutt of 'Cowies Hill', Natal, in the late 19th century; his daughter Mrs McDonald; thence by descent in South Africa EXHIBITED Royal Society of British Artists , London, 1889, cat. 494 as 'These Little Pigs went to Market', illus CATALOGUE NOTE William Strutt was the first Royal Academy trained artist to come to Melbourne in the 1850s. 1 Something of a child artist-prodigy, he had entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of fourteen. In Australia, Strutt's skills as a draughtsman and painter were soon acknowledged. However, most of his major Australian oil paintings were completed after he returned to England in 1862. The now famous Black Thursday (1864) and Bushrangers (1887) were based on events during his Australian years - in 1851 and 1852 respectively. A Sound Investment was first exhibited in London in 1889 and clearly reflects Strutt's experience of pastoral life in 'the Colonies. In fact Strutt's interest in animal painting seem to have first emerged in Melbourne: his Eagle Hawk (circa 1860) was one of the first purchases made by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and there is a very handsome camel in his famous portrait of Robert O'Hara Burke. Animal genre, often with a humorous character, became one of his most successful themes during the 1880s, with examples admired by reviewers at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and in exhibitions outside London as far away as Sydney. A Sound Investment with its droll title, suggestion of narrative and lively characterisation of human and animal subjects alike, is a fine and typical example. It was described at the time as a 'humouresque', in which the pair of 'little porkers' were each 'trying to give tongue with the most ear-splitting squeak.' 2 Other animal subjects in Australian public collections included the pair of delightful canine genre pieces in the National Gallery of Australia and another somewhat reluctant pig, Checkmate , in the National Gallery of Victoria. For an antipodean view, the golden grasslands, blue hills and drover on horseback in the middle distance would have seemed very familiar. The unusually high key of Strutt's palette in this painting and the almost impressionist heath haze in the landscape, must have stood out on the walls in its first London exhibition and anticipate in a remarklable way both the style and themes of the Heidelberg School painters a generation later. 1. H. Curnow in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists , Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 767-9 2. Topical Times , 20 April 1889

William Strutt (1825-1915) Two studies of camels one signed and dated 'July 15th 78- W. Strutt del' (lower right); and further inscribed 'Shaggy hair' (lower left), one inscribed '....and azure sky.' (lower left) and further indistinctly inscribed (upper right, slightly overmounted) pencil and brown and ochre wash 6¼ x 9¾ in. (15.9 x 24.8 cm.); and 8 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. (21.3 x 27 cm.); two in one frame (2) Provenance By descent in the family to Mrs Margaret Strutt-Davies. Lot Notes Strutt is best known for his sympathetic studies and drawings of animals. He studied at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris before travelling to Australia in 1850, returning to England in 1856. He also painted genre and religious scenes as well as portraits. He exhibited numerous times at the Royal Academy from 1865.