Lot 126: George Holmes (fl.c.1786-1809)

George Holmes (fl.c.1786-1809)
Artists from the Bristol Sketching Club before St. Vincent's Rock, Clifton, Bristol (illustrated); Figures before St. Vincent's Rock, Clifton, Bristol; and Clifton seen from Leighwood
the first signed and dated 'G Holmes/1809' (lower right) and inscribed 'St. Vincent's Rock' (lower centre, in the margin); the second signed 'G Holmes' (lower left) and inscribed 'Sυt. Vincent's Rock. Clifton' (on the reverse); the third signed and dated 'Geo Holmes/1809' (lower centre) and inscribed 'Clifton seen from Leighwood' (lower centre, in the margin)
pencil and watercolour, on card, unframed
15 x 19 in. (38.2 x 48.3 cm.); and smaller; and an unframed drawing of figures on the coast by Shakespeare's Cliff, by the same hand (4)

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
The Bristol Sketching Club was not a formal institution, but it laid the foundations for the emergence of the Bristol School in around 1820. It appears to have been a gathering of the Bristol friends of the genre painter Edward Bird (1772-1819), such as George Cumberland who wrote of his friend that 'for some years he was the centre of a society assembled to make drawings in the evening before supper, where the greater number of members were amateurs.'