Pen and brown and grey ink and grey washes on laid paper

18.2 by 17.2 cm., 7 by 6 3/4 inches

Provenance:

Colonel Gould Weston, his sale, Christie’s, 15th July 1958, lot 125 as part of an album;

Ralph Holland (1917-2012)

Thornhill was the most important decorative painter of interiors in the early eighteenth century. His most important works are the interior of the Great Hall at Greenwich and the interior of the dome of St. Paul’s, London. He also worked in a number of great English houses, Blenheim, Hampton Court, Chatsworth, Easton Neston and Wimpole.

This drawing may be linked to the work that Thornhill did for Isaac Loader (b.1653) at Deptford. Loader was an anchor maker by profession and was appointed Sheriff of Deptford in 1701. Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725) visited Loader’s house in 1714 and records that `the gardens are surprisingly fine and large: there are Mr Thornhill’s paintings in the Bagnio, and other garden-houses’ (see R. Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., 1830, p.237).

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Pen and brown ink and wash

6.9 by 5.5 cm., 2 3/4 by 2 inches

Thornhill was the most important decorative painter of the early eighteenth century. His most famous works are the interior of the dome of St. Paul?s Cathedral and the Great Hall at Greenwich. He also worked on interior decoration at Blenheim, Moor Park, Hampton Court, Easton Neston and Wimpole.

The present drawing is likely to relate to one of his decorative schemes. The distinctive use of crosses in the place of faces is typical of his pen and ink preparatory drawings.