| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-232 | |
| Auction House | Farebrother (Charles) -- from catalog: Mr. Farebrother | | Sale Location | No.16 Old Bond Street, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | Humble, John
from catalog: An amateur
from other sources: [Humble] | | Lugt Number | 6734 | | No. of Painting Lots | 145 | | Notes | The contents were 145 lots of paintings sold over the course of two days. The owner is given on the title page of the catalogue as "an Amateur," but the name of "Mr. Humble" is inscribed on the covers of the CIL and ISGB catalogues, a reference to the dealer John Humble, to whom many of the lots can also be traced. However, a note at the end of the ISGB catalogue states only that "the greatest part of these belong to Mr Humble," indicating that other consigners may also have been involved, and in fact about two-thirds of the lots cannot be directly associated with him. For that reason we have qualified his ownership for those lots where the association is uncertain.
John Humble regularly consigned his paintings to the European Museum in King St. for sale by private contract, and at least 47 pictures from the present sale can be found in their catalogues issued during 1801 and 1803 (Br-64, 165-A and 203). During the period 1801-1811 he seems to have been the chief consigner to that institution, and he may have had a financial stake in it. Periodically, however, he withdrew paintings that had failed to sell and put them up for auction, generally with Charles Farebrother, who was evidently his auctioneer of choice. Humble can also be associated with the Farebrother auction held on Mar.23/24, 1804 (Br-250), which had a similar group of pictures previsouly exhibited at the European Museum. None of the present pictures reappear in that sale, however.
At least three or four of the lots in the present sale can also be found in a catalogue (Br-229-A) issued by the European Museum during the same month, February, 1804. The latter catalogue, which carries only the month and not the date, has been placed earlier in the sequence but was certainly not released until later in the month, i.e. after the present auction. However, it is impossible to know which of the two catalogues was printed first.
The title page of the present catalogue gives special prominence to two paintings, a picture of A Beggar Boy by Murillo and a landscape by Richard Wilson, neither of which can be certainly associated with John Humble. The first of these was knocked down for £160, by far the highest price in the sale, but it is not certain that it was in fact sold. The landscape by Wilson supposedly fetched 57 1/2 guineas, but since the price was not translated into pounds, it is very probable that it was only bought in. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | CIL [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. in pencil by J. Galpine with a few buyers as well as many prices and the approximate dimensions. The annotations are very difficult to read.
VAL [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. by the dealer Woodin with many prices, primarily on the second day.
ISGB Annot. with many comments and a drawing of lot 64 on the first day. | | Photocopies | BIB, NGL and RKDH (all of CIL) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | |
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