Lot 71: Charles Tattershall Dodd (British, 1815-1878) The Upper Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells

Charles Tattershall Dodd (British, 1815-1878)
The Upper Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells
signed 'C.T. Dodd.' (lower left); indistinctly signed, inscribed with title and artist's address 'CT Dodd/6 Calverley Road/Tunbridge Wells' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
57 x 76.2cm (22 7/16 x 30in).

Footnotes

• The Upper Walk of The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, which is the subject of the present lot, was laid out in the 17th century. It formed a promenade along which fashionable company could disport themselves after taking the health-giving waters from the spa's chalybeate spring, during the summer season.
  
  The pantiles reached its heyday during Georgian times, when the celebrated Beau Nash was Master of Ceremonies, presiding over the Great Gaming Rooms that were situated to the left of the double-glazed building in the picture. In course of time, many of the buildings have been altered, or replaced on their original footprint, although the scene generally remains very recognisable, with the colonnade along one side and the line of shady trees on the other. By the time Tattershall Dodd produced this picture in the early 1860s, (he was living at 6 Calverley Parade from 1861 - 1866), Tunbridge Wells had developed from a fashionable seasonal spa into a sizeable residential town, and it may well be that a number of the characters portrayed in the painting would have been local residents, rather than visitors from further afield.
  
  Charles Tattershall Dodd (Senior) lived for most of his life in Tunbridge Wells, and was the town's foremost Victorian artist. He exhibited local and Welsh scenes at the British Institution from 1830 and at the Royal Academy in 1840 and 1850, his landscapes being in the Constable tradition.
  
  Tattershall Dodd was also Drawing Master at Tonbridge School for some forty years and, in 1864, he was appointed to give a course of instruction in drawing to their Royal Highnesses the Princess Amelia d'Orleans and Princess Christina d'Orleans, grand-daughters of Louis-Philippe, the last king of France.
  
  We are grateful to Dr Philip Whitbourn, O.B.E. for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.