Lot 227: Jean Le Capelain (Jersey 1812-1848)

Jean Le Capelain (Jersey 1812-1848)
Shipping at dusk
pencil and watercolour with scratching out, on paper, unframed
7 x 10 3/8in. (17.8 x 26.4cm.)

JOHN LE CAPELAIN (1812-1848)
(LOTS 227-228)

Believed to have been born in Jersey, Le Capelain began his career as an artist in the medium of lithography but in 1834 turned his attention to painting in watercolour, many of his early works depicting shipping becalmed in early morning mist. As his confidence increased he used different techniques with both paper and paint to convey more complex and extreme atmospheric effects and this work has been described as resembling the work of Turner. As a result of a visit to the island by Queen Victoria between 2nd and 4th September 1846, Le Capelain was commissioned by the States of Jersey to paint 26 watercolours to be presented to the Queen after her visit. Six of the scenes executed were of the royal visit itself and the remaining twenty of the scenery of Jersey. The watercolours were brought by a delegation to Windsor and as a result of them a splendid series of lithographs produced, The Queen's Visit to Jersey which became the corner stone of the iconography of Jersey. These watercolours prompted Queen Victoria to commission Le Capelain to create a series of watercolours of the Isle of Wight, but while there he contracted tuberculosis. He returned to Jersey in 1848 and died in October barely 36 years old.
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.