(British, 1750-1811)

A Good Catch!, unsigned, watercolor, ink and graphite on laid paper, 12 in. diameter; gilt wood frame, French mat, 22-3/4 x 22-1/4 x 1 in.

Provenance: Ex-collection Professor Riely, sold Bonhams, London, 30 June 1999, lot 56; Northeast Auctions: Saturday, November 12, 2011, lot 215

Note: This work is one of Bunbury’s sentimental genre pieces, which rarely appear on the market.

 The first of four lots in this sale from the collection of the late Professor John Cabell Riely (1945-2011), a noted scholar of 18th-century British art and literature and art and recognized expert on the works of artist-caricaturists Thomas Rowlandson and Henry William Bunbury. While at Yale, Riely wrote the exhibition catalogue for “Rowlandson Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection” (1977) and biography and catalogue for the Bunbury exhibition at Gainsborough’s House (1983), among numerous other studies relating to British art and caricature of the 18th century.