Burney's Pacific Coast Watercolor Sketches Album

AN ALBUM OF PACIFIC WATERCOLORS Burney, William James, Lieutenant; and an anonymous Lima School artist. Pacific Coast Sketches (An album of 34 watercolors and one ink drawing). An album of 34 watercolors and one ink drawing). 25 October 1843–10 October 1846. Here is what AI says it’s worth: $58,625. Cost: Purchased at Christie’s 23rd September 2004, lot 63 - GBP 6,572. Individual sheets of wove paper window-mounted onto uniform paper (8” x 5 7/8”, 202mm x 149mm). The ink sketch over graphite, the watercolors heightened in gum arabic. Most captioned in ink recto. All with manuscript in Burney’s hand verso, signed (or initialed) by him and dated. Bound in later (ca. 1880?) half morocco over marbled boards. On the spine, “‘PACIFIC COAST SKETCHES. 1845–46’” gilt. The only official record of William James Burney (perhaps it is too fanciful to seek a connection to James Burney, the rear-admiral who accompanied Captain Cook on his last two voyages) is that he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Royal Marines 8 May 1843. Some five months later, the first item in the present album finds Burney aboard a corvette, H.M.S. Talbot, laid down in 1821 and launched in 1824. Talbot was one of fourteen Atholl-class ships, largely headed for the Pacific. The first item, captioned verso “Napoleon being informed that Marmont had been Suprised [sic] during the night and driven from his foot in front of the heights of Laon”, initialed WJB and dated “HMShip “Talbot”/October 25th 1843.” (the initials and ship are also within the drawing at the lower edge) shows someone familiar with cartoons mocking the First Consul in the British press — despite recounting the battle at Laon from early March 1814. Carefully hatched, it shows a capable artist not without a certain amount of training. Following the careful ink sketch is a gap of more than two years (25 October 1843 to 11 November 1845), and the paintings (a full list with measurements and dates is available) show the Lieutenant in Lima. The first 24 watercolors — the first 22 located in Lima, the last two more generally Peru — have been attributed not to Burney but to an artist of the Lima School; cf. an album with 63 “costumbrista” watercolors owned by Dr. Archibald Smith, resident surgeon in Lima, which was sold at Christie’s London 25 September 2003 (lot 432). Although the Christie’s cataloguer of the present item (London 23 September 2004, lot 63) claims “identical subjects by the same local hand,” there are subtle differences. Still, the gap in style between the Napoleon sketch and the initial watercolors is persuasive: these must be the work of a local artist working from either a pattern-book or else a standard repertoire. The following three pictures (nos. 26-28) depict Mexican subjects, as does no. 30; no. 29 is captioned “Peruvians. The Almenchise [?] Flower in her Hand” verso. These show much more curiosity on Burney’s part, with an analysis of the grinding of pozole (although he is unaware that the corn is soaked in lime) into masa and the making of tortillas, as well as the transport of hay (“grass”) bales. Picture 27, A Man dragging a Water Cask. .Mexico., identified as Mazatlan, Mexico verso, has an additional drawing in ink of the water cask but viewed at 90 degrees from the depiction recto, suggesting that Burney as annotator saw the water cask himself, and, presumably, painted the picture recto — and therefore all those that follow (10). Perhaps most intriguing are the four pictures from Hawaii (nos. 31-34), the first depicting taro and poi (“Tarro and Poë”) with a description verso of the nature of taro and the making of poi. The second depicts a Hawaiian woman horseback, and the final two of outrigger canoes (canoes with a lateral support), both with descriptions verso. Hawaii, still an independent kingdom, was nevertheless engaged with the United Kingdom as well as with France and the United States; doubtless the Talbot was sent there to maintain open trade. The final picture, of a Chilean mounted horseback, shows Lieutenant Burney in Valparaíso about six weeks after his last picture from Hawaii. What can we learn about the corpus from the materiality of the album? Five of the pictures (nos. 9, 10, 29, 33 and 34) have part of a J. Whatman watermark, and two of the dates end in 2 (and the preceding digit is almost certainly a 3). All but the ink sketch are numbered in Burney’s hand verso, from 5 to 93, with some consecutive runs but also gaps as large as 12. Those numbers correspond roughly to the dates; no. 21 is dated November 14th 1845, and the subsequent picture, no. 33, July 16th 1846 (eight months). This suggests some sort of editorial process — or perhaps even the loss or destruction of material — from a larger group of paintings. The pinholes suggest that the pictures were displayed, perhaps in Burney’s cabin or in a communal space aboard ship. Condition: Rubbed generally. All but 5 watercolors (and the ink drawing) with pin holes at the four corners, in one case having pulled through with loss; some with old fill.

Estimate:£29,895

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