Lot 215: GEORGE LAMBERT

GEORGE LAMBERT LONDON 1695 - 1765 PART OF A RUIN OF ST RADIGUND'S ABBEY, KENT signed and indistictly dated lower right: G. Lambert 175(?9) oil on canvas 53.5 by 68.5 cm.; 21 by 27 in.

Probably London, Society of Artists, 1761, no. 61 (as 'Part of a Ruin of St Radegon's [sic] abbey')

E. Hasted, The General History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 4 vols., 1770-99, for St. Radigund's Abbey;
M. L. Schnackenburg, Der englische Landschaftsmaler George Lambert, PhD thesis, Gottingen 1992, published Osnabruck 1995, pp. 103-04, cat no. 52, fig. 48;
E. Einberg, 'Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of George Lambert', Walpole Society, Vol. LXIII, 2001, no. P1759, pp. 165-6, fig. 115 (illustrated before cleaning)

Probably the picture offered in the Society of Artist's exhibitor's sale, Langford's, 23rd February 1762, lot 8 (as 'A View of Radegon's [sic] Abbey near Dover');
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 22nd July 1953, lot 58 (bt. by Appleby);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 16th February 1960, lot 130 (bt. by Count);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 12th April 1991, lot 66 (bt. after sale by the present owner)

The view represents St Radigund's Abbey, also known as Bradsole Abbey, near Dover, Kent, looking towards a gateway through which can be seen the niches of the east-facing wall of the old chapter house. The farmhouse, built into the walls of the old Abbey, belonged to George Sayer Esq. (d.1778) of Pett, High Sheriff of Kent in 1755, though it is not known if he commissioned the painting. Engravings by William Mason, published in F. Grose's Antiquities of England and Wales (vol. II, c.1774), and by S. Hooper published in July 1784, show this same building from the other side of the Abbey wall.

In 1991, shortly after the picture last appeared on the market, it was discovered that the central figures of a man and a woman under a tree in the middle foreground had been painted over and replaced with a scarecrow, probably in the nineteenth century. It was in this state that the picture was illustrated in the 1991 Christie's catalogue , as well as in Elizabeth Einberg's catalogue in the Walpole Society (op.cit.lit). This over painting was later removed and the original figures discovered intact underneath.

A smaller version of this painting, traditionally attributed Lambert's pupil Richard Beauvoir but more likely a collaboration between the pupil and Lambert himself, is at Englefield House. Watercolours by Beauvoir in the same collection after this view and another similar, both inscribed 'copy' in the margin, suggest that the present work was originally painted as a companion piece to another, now untraced work.