A Hazy Morning

Provenance

Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, 22 March 1902.

Private Collection.

Acquired in 1955 at Harrods, London, and thence by decent to the current owner.

Exhibited

Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, Spring Exhibition, 1902, cat. no. 49.

Notes

The present lot is accompanied by the original purchase receipt from Harrods, an official biography, letters between the current owner and art historian Ruth Wood regarding the work, the plaque from the original frame bearing the artist's name, the date and title and Ruth Wood (1998) Benjamin Williams Leader RA 1831-1923: His Life and Paintings, England: The Antique Collector's Club, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated in colour.

Dated 1902, the present lot exemplifies Leader's celebrated handling of light on still river water, recalling Leader's much-loved views of the banks of the Severn and of the Surrey countryside.

The work carries a fascinating provenance: acquired directly from Harrods in London in 1954, it was subsequently brought to the families home in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where it hung on their farmhouse walls for decades. By remarkable coincidence, the family established their farm directly adjacent to none other than Leader’s own great-nephew. This personal connection between neighbouring farming families preserved the direct, living lineage and historical memory of the painting as it passed through generations.

Benjamin Williams Leader was born in Worcester in 1831, the son of Edward Leader Williams, a civil engineer and keen amateur painter whose circle included John Constable. After training at the Worcester School of Design, he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1854, and in the same year showed his first work at the Academy, where it was well received.

Leader quickly built a reputation for his views of Welsh and Scottish mountain scenery, and later for the quiet, pastoral landscapes of Worcestershire and Surrey that became his signature. His meticulous handling of light, weather and the changing seasons won him a devoted public following. Between 1857 and 1893 he exhibited 93 works at the Royal Academy, six at the British Institution, six at Suffolk Street and 25 at other exhibitions. International recognition followed at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, where he was awarded a gold medal and made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1883 and a full Academician in 1898. He died in 1923 and remains one of the most popular painters of the English landscape of the Victorian era.