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Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil

27.1 x 37.9 cm., 10 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby?s, 9th May 1962, lot 60

Private collection, London until 2010
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Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil

39.7 by 59.5cm., 15 ? by 23 ? inches

St Martin?s Church sits on the north corner of the Cathedral Close in Exeter. A church on this site was originally consecrated in 1065 and the church has since been remodelled in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Catherine Street is the road to the left with the Cathedral Close to the right. The elaborate building to the right was known as Mol?s Coffee House and was the home of the artist John Gendall from circa 1834 until his death in March 1865.

Thumbnail panels:

John Gendall 1790-1865

Gendall was born in Exeter and started life as a servant to a barrister James White, the uncle of John White Abbott (1763-1851). Perhaps encouraged by White, Gendall was in London by 1811 working for Ackermann?s in London where he produced drawings to be engraved. He returned to Exeter in the late 1820s and moved into Mol?s Coffee House on the Cathedral Close in 1833. He lived there with his wife Maria and worked as a drawing teacher, carriage painter, carver and gilder.