Provenance

Presumably bought from the artist by Arthur Champernowne (1768–1819), whose great-grandson Arthur Melville Champernowne (1871–1946; see Comment at FT602) sold it for £29 (with FT298, FT313) at Sotheby’s on 20 May 1936, lot 1, to “Stelfox” (presumably a pseudonym), according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the library of the Courtauld Institute of Art (kindly supplied by Donato Esposito). However, the Art Sales Index also records its sale at Sotheby’s on 9 June 1938 for £26 (with FT298, FT313, FT583) to G. Douglas Thompson of the Palser Gallery of 27 King Street, London. It seems unlikely that both sales took place, although it is not impossible. What is clearer is that it was sold at Sotheby’s on 19 March 1958, lot 33, for £230 to Agnew’s (no.9195), who bought it on behalf of Sir William Worsley, Bt (1890–1973). Worsley’s family sold it at Christie’s on 20 November 1984, lot 71, to Leger Galleries, who sold it to the writer and bibliophile Iola Stetson Haverstick (1924–2002), who bequeathed it in 2003 to its present owner, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (B2003.9.2).