#MC47
Ca. 1870s
Watercolour and pencil on paper: one ca. 17,5x23 cm (6 ¾ x 9 ¼ in), seven ca. 19,5x14 cm (7 ¾ x 5 ½ in), four ca. 12x16 cm (4 ¾ x 6 ½ in) or slightly smaller, and four smaller ones, ca. 8,5x13,5 cm (3 ¼ x 5 ¼ in). Each signed by the artist in one of the lower corners; the majority with pencil captions underneath. Mounted on both sides of three large album leaves. Mounts slightly soiled, but the watercolours are bright and in very good condition.
Nice collection of watercolour views of Dalmatia and Transylvania, by Scottish artist, sportsman and ornithologist Charles George Danford. The drawings taken from life reflect Danford’s extensive travels across the Balkans and Southern Europe in the 1870-1880-es. Dalmatia is represented with large watercolours showing the environs of Dubrovnik (Ragusa): one of the city’s narrow streets and the cathedral and then ‘Castello nuovo’ in Katar (Cattaro), a street in Cetinje (Cettigne), Katar’s panorama with a serpentine road leading to Cetinje et al. A group of smaller images show Zadar (Zara), Neretva (Narenta) Gorge, small ‘Hotel Europa’ on the ‘Montenegrin frontier’, a distant view of Ogulin town with surrounding mountains et al. A series of watercolours is dedicated to the Pâclişa village in Transylvania (now a neighbourhood of Alba Iulia, Romania). Overall a beautiful collection of attractive views of the Dinaric Alps, the Adriatic Sea, and Dalmatian villages and towns with bright red-roofed houses.
“Charles G. Danford (fl. 1870s-1890s), born in Scotland, was an accomplished artist, sportsman and ornithologist. He was elected as a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London in 1874. In the 1870s Danford travelled extensively in the Near East. Some of these watercolours may have been painted on his travels with Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (1858-1889), whose book, Jagden und Beobachtungen (Vienna, 1887) Danford translated into English as Notes on Sport and Ornithology (London, 1889)” (Sotheby’s).
