Louisa Abbey Ruin with Figures

Emily Heath Collection

This picture is one of an interesting group of works that we have for sale which are the result of two ladies collecting through the 19th century. Emily Heath (b.1830), to whom the collection belonged from 1856, was daughter of a 'gentleman', James Hodsoll Gordon Heath (1794–1875) and his wife Sarah Deborah Pidding (1794–1887), who resided at Blackheath and later Tonbridge in Kent. The pictures originally belonged to Emily's aunt, Eliza, sister of James Hodsoll Gordon Heath. The collection comprises works acquired by both Eliza and Emily.

Emily's brother was an artist and portrait painter, Albert Hodsoll Heath (1827–1863), and the family clearly had artistic and literary connections: one painting appears to be by a young Solomon Alexander Hart RA (1806–1881), and manuscripts in the collection include verses by the poet William Kennedy (1799–1871).

The collection includes picturesque landscape and marine subjects, horses and dogs, a group of paintings on Chinese pith and three Baxter prints. There is also an interesting sectional drawing of a vertical steam engine, a fine portrait after Van Dyck and an exquisite painting of two girls reclining.