Price on requestSigned with initials lower left: Tunbridge Wells/JM 1847
Watercolour over traces of pencil
32.7 by 48.2 cm., 12 3/4 by 19 in.
Provenance:
Private Collection, UK
Middleton's tour of Kent in 1847 produced `a number of his best free watercolour landscapes' (see Andrew Wilton and Annie Lyles, The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880, 1993, p.318). Andrew Moore observed that `1847 proved to be the annus mirabilis of Middleton's life and career' (Andrew Moore, The Norwich School of Artists, 1985, p.144).
Middleton almost certainly accompanied his pupil Henry Bright (1810-1873) on a tour of Kent in the summer of 1847. Two Tunbridge Wells views by Bright are in the Castle Museum, Norwich as well as a watercolour by Middleton with the same inscription and date as the present work.
Price on requestInscribed lower right: Comb Martin N. Devon
Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of white
30.7 by 43.7 cm., 12 by 17 ¼ in.
This dates from Middleton's visit to Devon in 1850. Combe Martin is five miles east of Ilfracombe on the North Devon coast. He exhibited two views of the river Lyn at the British Institution in 1851 and 1853 and a view of Clovelly at the Royal Academy in 1851.
Another watercolour of this view by Middleton, signed and dated 1850, was sold at Sotheby's on 30th November 2000, lot 312, for £7,800.
Sold Wa
30.1 by 48.1cm., 11 3/4 by 18 3/4 inches
This watercolour is likely to date from his visit to
Provenance:
L.R. Nightingale, Paston House, Elm Hill,
Sir Samuel Hoare (1841-1915);
Anonymous sale, 14th July 1988, 1988, lot 163;
Private Collection until 2008
Sold Signed lower right: Clovelly ND/JM 1850.
Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour and scratching out
48.4 by 33.7 cm., 19 by 13 ¼ in.
Provenance:
With Mandell's Gallery, Norwich
This watercolour dates from Middleton’s tour of North Devon in the summer of 1850. Clovelly is a picturesque fishing village on Barnstaple Bay not far from the border with Cornwall. Middleton exhibited a Clovelly view at the Royal Academy in 1851. Two other upright watercolours of rivers of the same size as this date from this tour, `Near Ivy Bridge’ which appeared at Christie’s on 5th June 2006, lot 36 and `Lynmouth’ which is in the Castle Museum, Norwich.
