The 9.75 in x 7.75 in miniature on wood was catalogued as “In the style of George Stubbs (1724-1806), a gilt framed 18th century oil on panel of Royal Naval seaman Captain Ellis, believed to be Captain William Wade Ellis who sailed with James Cook on the third & final voyage of HMS Discovery as Surgeon's Mate".
Ellis also drew birds and fishes during the voyage and on his return to London, wrote from memory a book about Cook: Authentic Narrative of a Voyage performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clarke in H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery during the years 1776-1780 (London, 1782). He later joined an Austrian scientific expedition and died when he fell from a mast.
The estimate on the miniature was £200 to £400 but Paul Clark of Clarks Auction Rooms in Cornwall said it led the New Year's Day sale as it was thought it might gather traction. The sale total was around hammer £18,000.
When Clark was told that there were a few Ellis’s, the name of sailor depicted in the miniature Cornwall and Devon, he agreed that was so but that its appearance had nothing to do with them. By sheer coincidence one of the most respected names in semi-retired Australian colonial librarianship is an “Ellis” but it is understood that this does not have a bearing on the surprise price either.
More eyes were on the mention of George Stubbs, (1724-1806) in the cataloguing – albeit only in the style of. This should however also resound with Australians as one of the most impressive sleepers found Down Under was a painting of two foxhounds which was sold privately to the Tate Gallery London in the 1970s for around £120,000.
This was after being in the window of antique dealer Stanley Lipscombe’s windows in Castlereaqh Street for $A5000.
The immediate and specific interest to Australians of the latest find will be the sitter rather than the artist who painted the work. It appears to be “Cookiana” of considerable interest, albeit admittedly of the master mariner’s third voyage which came near to but not specifically to Australia.
William Ellis was on Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1780) which took Sir Joseph Bank’s living exhibit, the Hawaiian Omai back to his Pacific home. The voyage also searched for a North West Passage around northern America so there could be some Canadian interest in the sale.
Ellis (1751-1785) was himself an artist, his early work lowly regarded by some early scholars. Some argue that this is because of limited familiarity with it. He is already recognized for his importance in Australasia through presence of works in the Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand. The Turnbull’s interest is backed up by the Natural History Museum in London which has works by Ellis.
Ellis’s later works were long considered the best and most interesting because his transfer to the Resolution gave him a chance to learn from the artist John Webber whose portrait of Captain Cook was once in the late Australian tycoon Alan Bond’s corporate collection.
Miniature portraits have ranked among Australians’ finest sleepers from the punter Neville Healy’s discovery of one depicting King George III by the Swiss artist to Etienne Liotard (1702-1789).
A recent run of sleepers has surprised Australian art traders. The penetration of the Internet was thought to have eliminated them. The flow of information coming to the fore usually means that little of special interest is sold without its full history being open to the world.
Late in 2018 a group of Aboriginal portraits by the artists on the Baudin expedition of 1802-04 were sold for many times their estimates by a Paris auction house. They made even more money when re-offered by Deutscher + Hackett in Sydney.
Groups of seemingly valuable overseas works (notably Chinese) offered in Sydney have also sold for far more than they were expected to.
Given the local lack of knowledge of Mandarin that Is a situation which is likely to stay.
Chinese paintings sold by Bonhams Australia in Sydney last year were led by Vines and Grass on Rock, an ink and colour on paperhanging scroll, inscribed and signed Dayi Shou, with three seals of the artist, dated 1954 which sold for $1,464,000 including premium. The estimate on this May sale was $3,500-$5,000.
