Paul Sandby
Windsor conceived as a stage design, the artistic education of a young aristocrat, and reflections on the Thames Embankment in a selection of prints connected with painter and printmaker Paul Sandby (c.1731-1809).
Sandby started out working for the Board of Ordnance as a draughtsman, honing the skills he would subsequently exploit in his prints and watercolours, but aside from his skills as a landscape artist he was also a talented caricaturist. He produced a set of biting satires against Hogarth and also a set of London Cries which avoid the generic sentiment so often found in such subjects. The following two prints also show Sandby's skill as a caricaturist:
The Well Fed English Constable.
P.Sandby Invt. MDarly sc.
Pubd. according to Act of Parlt. Octr. 1st: 1771 by MDarly Engraver No.39 Strand.
Etching, 350 x 250mm. 13¾ x 9¾". Some offsetting.
A watchman in profile patting his enormous belly, holding his staff, two dogs slavering at a dead fowl in his pocket. The collar of one of the dogs is inscribed with the name of its owner, 'T. Guttle'.
After Paul Sandby (1725 - 1809).
From an album of caricatures published by Mary Darly dated January 1776. It seems that her husband Matthew made the plates.
BM Satires: 4641.
[Ref: 14121] £360.00
The Pluralist and Old Soldier.
During the late 1750s Sandby was employed to instruct George Simon, Viscount Nuneham, later second Earl Harcourt, and other members of the family: 'his instruction of various family members centered on their making copies after his designs, whether capriccios or studies of the family estate' ( Stanton Harcourt). He also supervised George Simon's production of his own original prints: 'Surviving drawings, now in a private collection, certainly suggest that Sandby guided the artist, George Simon, Viscount Nuneham, through the execution of both compositions, if not their translations into print'. A set of four etchings, three by Viscount Nuneham from his own designs and a fourth after Sandby, over a period of four years, allow comparison between the artist's work after Sandby:
etched by Nuneham in 1763 from a 1762 drawing by Sandby.
and his own compositions as they developed from 1760 to 1764:
etched by Nuneham in 1764 from his own 1763 drawing.
A View of the Ruins of the Chappel at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. The Manor of Stanton Came into the Family of Harcourt by the marriage of Rob. De Harcourt Knt. (Temp Hen.I) with Isabella daughter and heir of Richd. De Camvill, by Millicent his wife Cozen of Adeliza de Brabant 2d wife of King Hen.I. which Millicent had a royal Grant of the same. It has now remaind in the possession of the Harcourts above 600 years. And from them assumed the name of Stanton-Harcourt. [&] A View of the Ruins of the Chappel at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. [&] View of the Ruins of the Kitchen at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. [&] A View of the Ruins of the Kitchen, and part of the Offices at the Stanton_Harcourt in the County of Oxford with a distant view of the Chappel & Parish Church.
Drawn after Nature 1760 and Etched 1763 by Newnham [plates I & IV]. Drawn after Nature 1763 and Etched 1764 by Nuneham [plate II]. Etch'd by Newnham 1763 Drawn after Nature by P. Sandby 1760 [plate III].
Societati Antiquariorum Londinensi dono dedit Simon Comes de Harcourt Socius AD. MDCCLXXXV [1785].
Set of four etchings, each c.430 x 525mm. 17 x 20¾". Some light spotting, mostly marginal. Fine impressions with full margins. Uncut.
[Ref: 13119] £850
Aside from the Stanton Harcout views, Nuneham's etchings after drawings by Sandby also included copies of paintings by Claude, and Italianate capriccios in the manner of Salvator Rosa, such as this:
[River Scene with Trees and Castle] To the Right Honourable Georgiana Viscountess Spencer this Etching from Paul Sandby in Inscribed by her Ladyship's obliged humble Servant. Newnham.
[n.d. c.1760]
Etching. Plate 226 x 161mm. 9 x 6¼".
Landscape after Paul Sandby (1731-1809); Two women, probably washing clothes, on the bank of a river, with a castle in the background.
Ex. Col: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd.
[Ref: 14940] £140.00 (£168.00 incl.VAT)
This can be compared with Sandby's own etchings on similar subjects from the same period:
[Untitled landscape with a gnarled tree with a woman persued by a bull.]
[Drawn and etched by Paul Sandby.]
[n.d., c.1760.]
Etching. 305 x 205mm, 12 x 8".
A man climbs the tree, dropping his hat behind him, while the woman runs up from the left, arms outstretched in panic.
BM: 1904,0819.525, with an mss annotation 'Sir R Burdett's Park at Burton'
[Ref: 19594] £110.00 (£132.00 incl.VAT)
Sandby's primary innovation was his pioneering use of aquatint, a printmaking technique which had been in use since the 17th century but which he, as a watercolourist, recognised as uniquely suited to the reproduction of watercolours in printed form. Between 1775 and 1777 he published a series of views in Wales which mark an important contribution to British landscape art. They disseminated Sandby's topographically accurate approach to landscape, honed by his training with the Board of Ordnance. In Sandby's view of Llangollen, for example, unlike Richard Wilson's classicising views of the same location, drawing on the work of Claude and Gaspard Poussin, 'we are presented with the limited vistas and step mountains experienced by the traveller in north Wales':
Llangollin in the County of Denbigh, from the Turnpike Road above the River Dee.
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row, Sepr. 1st. 1776' and numbered in upper left corner 'No. 4'.
Aquatint 315 x 240mm.
From the Kenyon Collection.
[Ref: 8376] £190.00 (£228.00 incl.VAT)
Pont y Pair over the River Conway above Llanrwst in the County of Denbigh.
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sepr. 1st. 1776.
Aquatint with etching. 240 x 315mm.
[Ref: 5341] £380
View up Neath River from the House at Briton Ferry in Glamorgan Shire
P. Sandby Fecit.
Published Sepr. 1st 1775. by J. Boydell Cheapside
Aquatint 315 x 240mm. number 'V' above the image. Closed letters on aquatint ground
[Ref: 8371] £250
Sandby also employed aquatint to make prints of ancient ruins:
Gymnasivm at Ephesvs.
P. Sandby fecit., W. Pars Pinxt.
[Published by P. Sandby, January 1st 1780]
Tinted aquatint printed in bistre, 510 x 330mm.
[Ref: 5336] £650
and Windsor, we he and his family spent much time. The bodycolour painting from which this print derives dates from around 1765 and is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art:
Windsor Terrass looking Westward. No.3.
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sep.r 1.st 1776.
Aquatint with etching. Plate 342 x 482mm. 13½ x 19". Conservation backing, wormholes in upper right and lower right, slight abrasion in sky..
[Ref: 20304] £240
Sandby produced many prints of Windsor along with his brother Thomas- their set of Eight Views of Windsor Great Park was 'one of the most lavish series of the 18th century...first made available by private subscription in December 1754 and presumably published the following year. The set was to reach a wider market when advertised for sale in the London Chronicle on 27 April 1758 and on being re-published as hand-coloured engravings by John Boyell on 2 March 1772'. This is the frontispiece to the volume:
To His Royal Highness the Duke. These Eight Views of Windsor Great Park; are humbly Inscribed by His Royal Highness’s most Devoted & Obedient Servant, Thos. Sandby.
Etched dedication page to the folio 'Eight Views of Windsor Great Park' by Thomas Sandby (1723 - 1798). Plate 340 x 330mm, 13½ x 13". Some small nicks and tears around the edges. Large margins.
On the evidence of surviving compositional studies it may be deduced that Paul Sandby (1725 - 1809) was responsible for the figures, and Thomas for the panoramic landscapes.
British Library: 004957624. Bruce Robertson, The Art of Paul Sandby, no. 71.
[Ref: 17019] £280
But while Sandby produced some of the most spectacular views of Windsor Castle ever made, he also had a gift for the unusual. The next print derives from a watercolour from c.1775 in the Royal Collection and presents the castle in an innovative way, using a nearby and distinctly un-picturesque brewhouse as a framing device: 'here the landscape artist assumes a convention associated with designers of stage sets, by generating a foreground proscenium that acts as a vantage upon a distant scene'. Far from conventional, the view shows how Sandby 'revelled in ungainly collisions':
Windsor from Mr Isherwood's Brewhouse in Datchet Lane.
P. Sandby Fecit. 1780.
Published by T. Palser, Surry side Westminster Bridge 1812.
Etching and coloured aquatint, sheet 205 x 280mm. 8 x 11". Trimmed to plate. Slightly stained.
[Ref: 8890] £100.00 (£120.00 incl.VAT)
Sandby also produced notable London views reproduced as prints, including one of the finest views of Covent Garden:
The West Front of St. Paul's Covent Garden.
P.Sandby delin. Edwd Rooker Sculp.
Publish'd According to Act of Parliament by Edw. Rooker Dec. 31 1766.
Copper Engraving, first issue, good impression, 555 x 415mm (21¾ x 16½"). Small repaired tear on left, slight crease in sky.
[Ref: 19619] £380
which published as part of a set of six views along with prints after his brother Thomas, such as this one, also of Covent Garden:
Covent Garden Piazza.
T. Sandby delin. Edw.d Rooker Sculp.
Published Jan.y 1:st 1777, by John Boydell, Engraver, in Cheapside, London.
Hand-coloured engraving. Plate 410 x 553mm. 16¼ x 21¾".
Covent Garden seen from the south-east side of the colonnade.
[Ref: 19656] £490
He also produced pendant views from the old Somerset House Terrace (demolished 1776), looking east and west along the Thames. This lithograph from the 19th century reproduces the view looking towards Westminster with the long-since demolished terrace. Interestingly, the lithograph was made around the time that many proposals were being made regarding the embankment of the river Thames in central London, one of which was the unrealised project by Colonel Trench:
[Section from Trench's embankment proposal]
[T.M. Baynes. Charles Hullmandel.]
[published by Ackermann, 1825.]
Coloured lithograph. 272 x 671mm. 10¾ x 26½".
Imagined view along River Thames with part of Waterloo Bridge on left, looking from Somerset House on left to the Temple on the right. Other landmarks annotated along bottom: New Church Strand (ie St. Mary-le-Strand), Surrey St., Norfolk St., St, Clement's Church, and Arundel St. Colonel (later General Sir Frederick) Trench originated the idea of the Thames Embankment, for which a bill was (unsuccessfully) presented to Parliament in 1825. Revived, work on the Embankment started in 1864, although to a different design than is shown here. Drawn by Thomas Mann Baynes, the panorama shows the riverside as it appeared in 1825, from Westminster to London Bridge, with Trench's proposed embankment running from Whitehall to Blackfriars Bridge, with the skyline of London shown correctly above; this would have been one of nine lithographic sheets.
see R.Hyde, 'Panoramania!' (1988); For other sections see refs 23747, 23749 & 23750. See Abbey Life: 496.2.
[Ref: 27466] £260
before the current Embankment was finally built in the 1860s:
Thames Embankment.
T.G. Dutton, chromo-lith. Day & Son, Lithrs. to the Queen.
London, Published June 11th. 1864 by Day & Son[...]
Chromolithograph, image 190 x 360mm. 7½ x 14¼".
[Ref: 26234] £140.00 (£168.00 incl.VAT)
For this reason the production of a print of Sandby's splendid view from Somerset House is a way of preserving a sense of London and the Thames which was soon to change even more than it had done in the preceding decades:
View from the Gardens of Old Somerset House.
P. Sandby. H.Ford.
[n.d. c.1845]
Very fine coloured lithograph. 515 x 200mm. [Ref: 7113] £480
all quotations from the exhibition catalogue to the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain (2010).
Sandby started out working for the Board of Ordnance as a draughtsman, honing the skills he would subsequently exploit in his prints and watercolours, but aside from his skills as a landscape artist he was also a talented caricaturist. He produced a set of biting satires against Hogarth and also a set of London Cries which avoid the generic sentiment so often found in such subjects. The following two prints also show Sandby's skill as a caricaturist:
P.Sandby Invt. MDarly sc.
Pubd. according to Act of Parlt. Octr. 1st: 1771 by MDarly Engraver No.39 Strand.
Etching, 350 x 250mm. 13¾ x 9¾". Some offsetting.
A watchman in profile patting his enormous belly, holding his staff, two dogs slavering at a dead fowl in his pocket. The collar of one of the dogs is inscribed with the name of its owner, 'T. Guttle'.
After Paul Sandby (1725 - 1809).
From an album of caricatures published by Mary Darly dated January 1776. It seems that her husband Matthew made the plates.
BM Satires: 4641.
[Ref: 14121] £360.00
P.Sandby Invt. MDarly sc.
Pubd. according to Act of Parlt. by M.Darly facing New Round Court the Strand 1766.
Broadside, etching with 30 letterpress lines of verse in two columns, a dialogue between the soldier and the pluralist. 355 x 250mm. 14 x 9¾".
A ragged and unkempt old soldier (a crippled veteran of Guadalupe, taken from the French in 1759) begging arms from a well-fed pluralist parson, who holds a glass of ale and a tobacco pipe. The soldier's entreaties are haughtily dismissed by the clergyman.
See BM Satires 3994 for a 1762 version, in reverse.
[Ref: 14123] £420.00
Pubd. according to Act of Parlt. by M.Darly facing New Round Court the Strand 1766.
Broadside, etching with 30 letterpress lines of verse in two columns, a dialogue between the soldier and the pluralist. 355 x 250mm. 14 x 9¾".
A ragged and unkempt old soldier (a crippled veteran of Guadalupe, taken from the French in 1759) begging arms from a well-fed pluralist parson, who holds a glass of ale and a tobacco pipe. The soldier's entreaties are haughtily dismissed by the clergyman.
See BM Satires 3994 for a 1762 version, in reverse.
[Ref: 14123] £420.00
During the late 1750s Sandby was employed to instruct George Simon, Viscount Nuneham, later second Earl Harcourt, and other members of the family: 'his instruction of various family members centered on their making copies after his designs, whether capriccios or studies of the family estate' ( Stanton Harcourt). He also supervised George Simon's production of his own original prints: 'Surviving drawings, now in a private collection, certainly suggest that Sandby guided the artist, George Simon, Viscount Nuneham, through the execution of both compositions, if not their translations into print'. A set of four etchings, three by Viscount Nuneham from his own designs and a fourth after Sandby, over a period of four years, allow comparison between the artist's work after Sandby:
and his own compositions as they developed from 1760 to 1764:
A View of the Ruins of the Chappel at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. The Manor of Stanton Came into the Family of Harcourt by the marriage of Rob. De Harcourt Knt. (Temp Hen.I) with Isabella daughter and heir of Richd. De Camvill, by Millicent his wife Cozen of Adeliza de Brabant 2d wife of King Hen.I. which Millicent had a royal Grant of the same. It has now remaind in the possession of the Harcourts above 600 years. And from them assumed the name of Stanton-Harcourt. [&] A View of the Ruins of the Chappel at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. [&] View of the Ruins of the Kitchen at Stanton-Harcourt in the County of Oxford. [&] A View of the Ruins of the Kitchen, and part of the Offices at the Stanton_Harcourt in the County of Oxford with a distant view of the Chappel & Parish Church.
Drawn after Nature 1760 and Etched 1763 by Newnham [plates I & IV]. Drawn after Nature 1763 and Etched 1764 by Nuneham [plate II]. Etch'd by Newnham 1763 Drawn after Nature by P. Sandby 1760 [plate III].
Societati Antiquariorum Londinensi dono dedit Simon Comes de Harcourt Socius AD. MDCCLXXXV [1785].
Set of four etchings, each c.430 x 525mm. 17 x 20¾". Some light spotting, mostly marginal. Fine impressions with full margins. Uncut.
[Ref: 13119] £850
Aside from the Stanton Harcout views, Nuneham's etchings after drawings by Sandby also included copies of paintings by Claude, and Italianate capriccios in the manner of Salvator Rosa, such as this:
[n.d. c.1760]
Etching. Plate 226 x 161mm. 9 x 6¼".
Landscape after Paul Sandby (1731-1809); Two women, probably washing clothes, on the bank of a river, with a castle in the background.
Ex. Col: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd.
[Ref: 14940] £140.00 (£168.00 incl.VAT)
This can be compared with Sandby's own etchings on similar subjects from the same period:
[Untitled landscape with a gnarled tree with a woman persued by a bull.]
[Drawn and etched by Paul Sandby.]
[n.d., c.1760.]
Etching. 305 x 205mm, 12 x 8".
A man climbs the tree, dropping his hat behind him, while the woman runs up from the left, arms outstretched in panic.
BM: 1904,0819.525, with an mss annotation 'Sir R Burdett's Park at Burton'
[Ref: 19594] £110.00 (£132.00 incl.VAT)
Sandby's primary innovation was his pioneering use of aquatint, a printmaking technique which had been in use since the 17th century but which he, as a watercolourist, recognised as uniquely suited to the reproduction of watercolours in printed form. Between 1775 and 1777 he published a series of views in Wales which mark an important contribution to British landscape art. They disseminated Sandby's topographically accurate approach to landscape, honed by his training with the Board of Ordnance. In Sandby's view of Llangollen, for example, unlike Richard Wilson's classicising views of the same location, drawing on the work of Claude and Gaspard Poussin, 'we are presented with the limited vistas and step mountains experienced by the traveller in north Wales':
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row, Sepr. 1st. 1776' and numbered in upper left corner 'No. 4'.
Aquatint 315 x 240mm.
From the Kenyon Collection.
[Ref: 8376] £190.00 (£228.00 incl.VAT)
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sepr. 1st. 1776.
Aquatint with etching. 240 x 315mm.
[Ref: 5341] £380
P. Sandby Fecit.
Published Sepr. 1st 1775. by J. Boydell Cheapside
Aquatint 315 x 240mm. number 'V' above the image. Closed letters on aquatint ground
[Ref: 8371] £250
Sandby also employed aquatint to make prints of ancient ruins:
P. Sandby fecit., W. Pars Pinxt.
[Published by P. Sandby, January 1st 1780]
Tinted aquatint printed in bistre, 510 x 330mm.
[Ref: 5336] £650
and Windsor, we he and his family spent much time. The bodycolour painting from which this print derives dates from around 1765 and is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art:
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sep.r 1.st 1776.
Aquatint with etching. Plate 342 x 482mm. 13½ x 19". Conservation backing, wormholes in upper right and lower right, slight abrasion in sky..
[Ref: 20304] £240
Sandby produced many prints of Windsor along with his brother Thomas- their set of Eight Views of Windsor Great Park was 'one of the most lavish series of the 18th century...first made available by private subscription in December 1754 and presumably published the following year. The set was to reach a wider market when advertised for sale in the London Chronicle on 27 April 1758 and on being re-published as hand-coloured engravings by John Boyell on 2 March 1772'. This is the frontispiece to the volume:
Etched dedication page to the folio 'Eight Views of Windsor Great Park' by Thomas Sandby (1723 - 1798). Plate 340 x 330mm, 13½ x 13". Some small nicks and tears around the edges. Large margins.
On the evidence of surviving compositional studies it may be deduced that Paul Sandby (1725 - 1809) was responsible for the figures, and Thomas for the panoramic landscapes.
British Library: 004957624. Bruce Robertson, The Art of Paul Sandby, no. 71.
[Ref: 17019] £280
But while Sandby produced some of the most spectacular views of Windsor Castle ever made, he also had a gift for the unusual. The next print derives from a watercolour from c.1775 in the Royal Collection and presents the castle in an innovative way, using a nearby and distinctly un-picturesque brewhouse as a framing device: 'here the landscape artist assumes a convention associated with designers of stage sets, by generating a foreground proscenium that acts as a vantage upon a distant scene'. Far from conventional, the view shows how Sandby 'revelled in ungainly collisions':
P. Sandby Fecit. 1780.
Published by T. Palser, Surry side Westminster Bridge 1812.
Etching and coloured aquatint, sheet 205 x 280mm. 8 x 11". Trimmed to plate. Slightly stained.
[Ref: 8890] £100.00 (£120.00 incl.VAT)
Sandby also produced notable London views reproduced as prints, including one of the finest views of Covent Garden:
P.Sandby delin. Edwd Rooker Sculp.
Publish'd According to Act of Parliament by Edw. Rooker Dec. 31 1766.
Copper Engraving, first issue, good impression, 555 x 415mm (21¾ x 16½"). Small repaired tear on left, slight crease in sky.
[Ref: 19619] £380
which published as part of a set of six views along with prints after his brother Thomas, such as this one, also of Covent Garden:
T. Sandby delin. Edw.d Rooker Sculp.
Published Jan.y 1:st 1777, by John Boydell, Engraver, in Cheapside, London.
Hand-coloured engraving. Plate 410 x 553mm. 16¼ x 21¾".
Covent Garden seen from the south-east side of the colonnade.
[Ref: 19656] £490
He also produced pendant views from the old Somerset House Terrace (demolished 1776), looking east and west along the Thames. This lithograph from the 19th century reproduces the view looking towards Westminster with the long-since demolished terrace. Interestingly, the lithograph was made around the time that many proposals were being made regarding the embankment of the river Thames in central London, one of which was the unrealised project by Colonel Trench:
[T.M. Baynes. Charles Hullmandel.]
[published by Ackermann, 1825.]
Coloured lithograph. 272 x 671mm. 10¾ x 26½".
Imagined view along River Thames with part of Waterloo Bridge on left, looking from Somerset House on left to the Temple on the right. Other landmarks annotated along bottom: New Church Strand (ie St. Mary-le-Strand), Surrey St., Norfolk St., St, Clement's Church, and Arundel St. Colonel (later General Sir Frederick) Trench originated the idea of the Thames Embankment, for which a bill was (unsuccessfully) presented to Parliament in 1825. Revived, work on the Embankment started in 1864, although to a different design than is shown here. Drawn by Thomas Mann Baynes, the panorama shows the riverside as it appeared in 1825, from Westminster to London Bridge, with Trench's proposed embankment running from Whitehall to Blackfriars Bridge, with the skyline of London shown correctly above; this would have been one of nine lithographic sheets.
see R.Hyde, 'Panoramania!' (1988); For other sections see refs 23747, 23749 & 23750. See Abbey Life: 496.2.
[Ref: 27466] £260
before the current Embankment was finally built in the 1860s:
T.G. Dutton, chromo-lith. Day & Son, Lithrs. to the Queen.
London, Published June 11th. 1864 by Day & Son[...]
Chromolithograph, image 190 x 360mm. 7½ x 14¼".
[Ref: 26234] £140.00 (£168.00 incl.VAT)
For this reason the production of a print of Sandby's splendid view from Somerset House is a way of preserving a sense of London and the Thames which was soon to change even more than it had done in the preceding decades:
P. Sandby. H.Ford.
[n.d. c.1845]
Very fine coloured lithograph. 515 x 200mm. [Ref: 7113] £480
all quotations from the exhibition catalogue to the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain (2010).
