'Pass of Bramante'

Maker

(artist)
1791-1875

Title

'Pass of Bramante'

Date of Production

1817

Medium

Graphite, pen and brown and black ink, brush and brown and grey wash on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 111 mm
Width: 195 mm

Accession Number

D.2022.ST.15

Mode of Acquisition

The Spooner Charitable Trust, gift, 2022

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Location

Not currently on display

Label Text

A talented amateur artist, Elizabeth Batty drew these finely observed views of the French Alps while undertaking a tour of France and Italy with her father in 1817. Remarkable for their delicate detail and subtle use of wash, they form part of a group of 44 drawings that were engraved and published to critical acclaim in London in 1820.

Batty's marriage in 1822 brought her artistic career to a premature end. The Italian tour drawings - the only ones by her hand that survive - have only recently been rediscovered.
Elizabeth Frances Batty (1791-1875) was a talented British amateur artist. She likely studied with the watercolourist and drawing master John Glover, OWS. Her sole known work is a group of pen, brush and wash drawings recording the journey she took through Italy in 1817 with her father, a doctor and fellow of the Linnaean Society. These drawings were engraved and published by the London firm of Rodwell & Martin in a volume in 1820 (Italian Scenery from Drawings made in 1817 by Miss Batty). Such books enjoyed a surge of popularity in Britain following the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the newfound accessibility of the Continent to British travellers. The publication was a critical success, with a contemporary critic describing the illustrations as showing Batty’s ‘eminent topographical taste’. Several of Batty’s drawings were also used as designs for transferware produced by the Staffordshire potters Enoch Wood & Sons. Despite the quality of her drawings, her artistic career seems to have been curtailed by her marriage in 1822 and no other work by her is known.

Forty-four of Batty’s drawings for Italian Scenery were only recently rediscovered, having long been erroneously attributed to her son. One of nine drawings now in The Courtauld’s collection, this delicately detailed composition shows ample evidence of the artist’s skill and powers of observation.

Provenance

Robert Braithwaite Martineau (1826-1849) and Edward Henry Martineau (1825-1901), children of Batty and Philip Martineau (1791-1860); then by descent; Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 20 March 2019 (lot 44), where incorrectly attributed to Edward Henry Martineau; purchased there by Abbott and Holder; sold to the Spooner Trust in 2021

Exhibition History

From the Baroque to Today: New Acquisitions of Works on Paper, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 23/02/2024-27/05/2024

Literature

Italian Scenery from Drawings made in 1817 by Miss Batty, Rodwell & Martin, 1820

Len Kling, ‘Wood’s Italian Scenery: Database Discoveries – Contribution #3’, Transferware Collectors Club newsletter, June 2012

Inscriptions

Mount (removed): Recto: lower centre right, pencil: "52943" [largely erased]. Verso: lower right, pencil: "97422"

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