Tudor and Later 'Thames' Lead Toy Dish and Plate Group

Composed of various types of fishing weight including capsule-shaped, conical, barrel-shaped and other forms. 1.9 kg total, 36-62 mm



Found Thames foreshore spoil, 1980s.

Signed in the bottom right corner of the watercolour; framed and glazed with loops for suspension to the reverse. 1.65 kgs, 40.4 cm



Ex Albert Ward collection, Essex, UK.

J.W.S. Cox (1911-1982) was an American watercolourist renowned for developing the wet-on-wet painting technique. He grew up in New York, where he avidly sketched landscapes from an early age. The artist graduated from Pratt Institute NYC in 1933 and worked various jobs through the Great Depression. In 1936, he studied at the Acadamie Colarossie in Paris, and with Fauvist Othon Friesz for a short time, although later dismissed the Fauvist style as 'sloppy'. He went on to teach watercolour painting to students at Boston University, founding a studio on Bearskin Neck, Rockport, where he developed his 'sponge painting' and palette-knife techniques. He painted with an individualistic style, becoming a member of the Boston Watercolour Society. Cox shunned publicity as he believed it robbed him of painting time and turned down membership to the National Academy because he 'wouldn't play the game'. A Renaissance man, Cox spoke 12 languages with a goal to present himself 'and the soul of nature as truthfully and with as much inspiration, vitality and freshness as is possible, through the medium of watercolour'. He died of a heart attack in Florida in 1982.

Openwork bow with volute scrolls and waisted silhouette, integral suspension loop to apex, collared and balustered neck, round-section stem with bulbous finial, rectangular bit with arrow-shaped void and two side notches. 74 grams, 12.2 cm



From the collection of an EU gentleman formed around 2000. Acquired on the UK art market.