Offered at the Taunton saleroom’s spring sporting sale on April 15, the work by Lionel Edwards (1878-1966) showed a famous figure in hunting folklore: Ernest Bawden, huntsman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, descending a combe near Chalkwater.
The 9½ x 13½ (24 x 34cm) oil on board had originally sold at GTH in September 2001 for £4000 where it was bought by a Northamptonshire client who was the consignor here.
Back then it had come from the family of Denis Aldridge, a lifelong friend of Edwards who corresponded regularly with the artist. Shortly after that sale, it had featured in a double-page article on Bawden in Hounds Magazine.
Estimated at £2500-3500 this time round, it drew good interest prior to the sale and, after a short bidding tussle, it was knocked down to a west Somerset buyer at £4500 – a sum indicating it had held its value better than many other sporting pictures sold over recent times.
King of the chase
'Brian HE Roberts out with the Duke of Beaufort’s Fox Hounds' by John Gregory King – £800 at Greenslade Taylor Hunt.
Also bringing decent bidding, a painting by John Gregory King (1929-2014) depicted Brian Roberts who, along with the artist himself, was joint master of the Hursley Foxhounds.
Showing Roberts riding in the foreground with Major Gerald Gundry leading the hounds and the 10th Duke of Beaufort at the head of the mounted field, the 19¾ x 23½in (50 x 60cm) signed oil on canvas was a commissioned painting from 1962.
It sold at £800 (estimate £400-450), an above-average price for the artist.
