James Ward, in an April 1824 letter to Sir William Knighton, described his subject range as “allegory, history, landscape, animals & Domestic.”1 He is certainly revered as one of the most important nineteenth-century painters of animals, though he commented that he did not “wish to be admitted into the Academy as a Horse Painter,” according to Joseph Farington.2 The verso of this sheet has been covered by a backing sheet that conceals a probably earlier drawing: Study of a Pig in watercolor, made with swift brushstrokes. It is similar to a pig in the oil painting Pigs and a Donkey in a Farmyard by James Ward (fig. 26.1).3
Ward is also known for his emotive landscapes in line with the interests of other British Romantics such as John Constable, who used sky studies to inform his larger painted compositions. As Constable wrote in a 1821 letter to his friend John Fisher, “It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. . . . The sky is the source of light in Nature, and governs everything.”4
Ward probably made studies of the sky throughout his career, for at the time of his death in 1859 a list of drawings and other works in the artist’s possession records “56 ‘sky’ drawings” (fig. 26.2).5 He enjoyed interpreting the landscape in his local surroundings or on his varied extended trips around Great Britain, including Scotland and Wales, and would use his sketches as source material, even sometimes years later. As early as 1807, Ward was making dramatic sky studies in the Welsh landscape near Cader Idris.6 Ward made a short journey to Margate with his wife in September and October, 1818, recorded in his diary, in which he mentions starting one painting and sky studies.7
In this watercolor, the land lies low with small vertical paint strokes suggesting trees spread across the distant rolling hills. The end of the day with the sun already set gives way to a tranquil sky’s pink and yellow glow, which graduates into bluish-gray washes of wispy, feathery cirrus clouds edged with yellow. Ward often made color notations on his drawings, and in this watercolor he made color notations in the sky, such as “ocre” in one place and “bare” in another, reminding him to leave the exposed white paper untouched by his brush. —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
1. See Edward J. Nygren, “James Ward, RA (1796–1850), Papers and Patrons,” in The Seventy-Fifth Volume of the Walpole Society (London: Walpole Society 2013), 169, cat. 91.
2. See Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 11, January 1811–June 1812, ed. Kathryn Cave (London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, 1983), 3,952 (June 20, 1811).
3. See James Ward, Pigs and a Donkey in a Farmyard, no date, oil on canvas, sale, Bonhams, London, Old Master Paintings, October 28, 2015, lot 135, and sale, Sotheby’s, London, The British Sale: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours, March 22, 2005, lot 10, illus.
4. See Kurt Badt, John Constable’s Clouds (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), 55.
5. See James Ward manuscripts and related material at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, acquired 1986, [860127-7]. One such example is James Ward, Sky Study, no date, watercolor on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection [B1977.14.5397].
6. See James Ward, The Top of Cader Idris, 1807, wash over traces of graphite, formerly Summerhayes collection, and James Ward, View from the Summit of Cader Idris, 1807, graphite and ink wash, formerly Summerhayes collection; see also Edward J. Nygren and Susan Sloman, Drawings by James Ward 1769–1859, on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Artist’s Death (London: W. S. Fine Art/Andrew Wyld, 2009), cats. 38, 39.
7. See James Ward’s papers, 1807–66, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles [860127-7], and Edward J. Nygren, “James Ward’s Papers: An 1826 Diary in Context,” Getty Research Journal, no. 3 (2011): 179.
Landscape at Sunset [recto]; Study of a Pig [verso]
Baker, Christopher. English Drawings and Watercolours 1600–1900, National Gallery of Scotland. Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 2011.
Farr, Dennis. James Ward, 1769–1859. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1960.
Lowell Libson Ltd. Breadth and Quality: Oil Studies, Watercolours and Drawings by James Ward RA. London: Lowell Lisbon, 2013.
Munro, Jane. James Ward RA 1769–1859. Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum; London: White Bros, 1991.
Nygren, Edward. “James Ward’s Exhibition Pictures of 1838.” Art Bulletin 61/3 (September 1979): 448–59.
Nygren, Edward. James Ward’s Gordale Scar, an Essay in the Sublime. Exh. cat. London: Tate Gallery, 1982.
Nygren, Edward. “James Ward’s Papers: An 1826 Diary in Context.” Getty Research Journal 3 (2011): 179–88.
Nygren, Edward. “James Ward, RA (1769–1859), Papers and Patrons.” Walpole Society 75 (2013): i–vii, ix–x, 1–438.
Nygren, Edward, and Susan Sloman. Drawings by James Ward 1769–1859, on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Artist’s Death. London: W. S. Fine Art/Andrew Wyld, 2009.
ProvenanceThe artist, c. 1820; [The Fine Art Society, London, May 18, 1960, Fortieth Exhibition of Early English Water-Colours and Drawings, cat. 56]; purchased by Walter Augustus Brandt (1902–1978), 1960–1978; by descent, 1978–2023; [Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd, London, 2023]; purchased by MFAH, 2023Comparative Images
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