Sold Inscribed on original border: Village of Biscot near Luton in Bedfordshire
Watercolour over traces of pencil
243 x 373 mm., 9 ½ x 14 ½ in.
Provenance
Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner, Bt. of Battlesden,
Bedfordshire;
By descent to Emily Page-Turner, purchased from her
Executors in 1885;
By descent until sold at Sotheby’s, 12th
June 1980, lot 25;
Private Collection, UK
Sold 
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Thomas Fisher 1772-1836Fisher’s
work was little known until a sale of 78 of his watercolours at Sotheby’s in
1980 brought him into the limelight. He was bought in Rochester, Kent where his
father was a printer and bookseller. In 1786 he entered the India Office as a
clerk and moved to Gloucester Terrace, Hoxton where he lived for most of his
life. At India House, he met Henry Humphrey Goodhall, a geologist and antiquary
from Bromham, Bedfordshire who alongside with the Rev. Thomas Orlebar Marsh
encouraged Fisher to record the topography of Bedfordshire which had never been
done before. He published two illustrated histories of the county and found a
number of local patrons, including Sir Gregory Page-Turner, who owned the present
watercolour, as well as the Duke of Bedford at Woburn. |