Jane D. Harvey (fl.1830s–1870s): Doddinghurst to Saundersfoot
This picture is one of a charming collection of works that we have for sale by Jane Dorothy Harvey of Doddinghurst, Essex, and later of Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire. Jane was eldest daughter of Rev. Bridges Harvey, Rector of Doddinghurst, a village in south Essex. She went on to marry the influential London solicitor and industrialist Charles Ranken Vickerman, who in 1863 purchased Hean Castle, Pembrokeshire.
Jane D. Harvey's works include rural subjects around Doddinghurst, capturing bygone sights of the early 19th century such as Blackmore mill and the family home, Doddinghurst Rectory, itself. Her travels take in the Isle of Wight, where she draws herring boats, churches, castles and ruins, and she paints further coastal views at Dover, St Leonards and Hastings. Her works are afforded particular charm by the inclusion of figures in period dress—booted and bonneted, and engaged in the activities of everyday life. She also shows an interest in the romantic and sentimental meaning to be found in landscape, depicting sites such as Lover's Leap in Derbyshire (so called for being a precipitous place of last recourse for the brokenhearted). In the 1850s she documents a trip to Switzerland, featuring views at Lucerne, Interlaken, Chillon Castle and local costume studies.
The collection also includes later works following Harvey's marriage to Charles Ranken Vickerman of Thoby Priory, Mountnessing, Essex, a London solicitor who developed industrial interests in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. In 1873, Vickerman founded the Bonvilles Court Coal & Iron Co. of which the Saundersfoot Railway & Harbour Co. became a subsidiary. In 1863 he bought Hean Castle at Saundersfoot, a mansion of red sandstone, which he rebuilt and greatly enlarged. Paintings in the collection include views along the Pembrokeshire coast and at Saundersfoot in the 1860s and 1870s—by Jane Dorothy Vickerman as she became. Their eldest son, Charles Henry Ranken Vickerman, continued the family's influence in south Wales, becoming JP for Pembrokeshire and High Sheriff in 1917.
