Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 210
William Henry Florio Hutchisson (British, circa 1795-1876) A chance encounter with a tiger during an elephant hunt
Amended
22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£10,000 - £15,000
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Oliver White
Head of Department
William Henry Florio Hutchisson (British, circa 1795-1876)
A chance encounter with a tiger during an elephant hunt
A chance encounter with a tiger during an elephant hunt
oil on canvas
56 x 72 cm.; with frame 75 x 90 cm.
56 x 72 cm.; with frame 75 x 90 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Collection of the artist until presumably gifted or bequeathed with his other works to
Rev. John Wilson, from circa 1876, until his sale at The Mart, Frome, Somerset, 9th September 1890, prior to his leaving Britain to settle overseas.
Estate sale of the French author, Dominique Lapierre (1931–2022), Saint-Cloud, France, 2024.
Painted circa 1835-37.
The artist arrived in India in 1824 and lived in Bengal for eighteen years, partly as a professional portraitist and partly as an indigo planter. He was an avid hunter and gave accounts of his sporting activities in several articles in The Bengal Sporting Magazine, under the pseudonym 'George Trigger', and in his memoirs, Pen and Pencil Sketches: Being Reminiscences During Eighteen Years Residence in Bengal (ed. Rev. John Wilson, London 1883), which were published posthumously. After returning to England, he served as Drawing Master at Radley College from 1855 to 1871.
This painting is one in a series illustrating aspects of hunting in India. A similar painting of a tiger hunt sold at Christie's, West-East: The Niall Hobhouse Collection, 22nd May 2008, lot 82. For a pair of hunting scenes, Buffalo Shooting from Elephants and Sand Grouse Shooting from Elephants, signed and dated 1837, see Christie's, 14 May 1982, lot 56 (later with Richard Green, 12th October-6th November 1982).
Hutchisson was active in Bath around 1815, but went to Calcutta in 1824, remaining there until 1842. Various paintings by him of Indian subjects are known; in 1836 he visited Murshidabad and several of his portraits of Nawab Nazim Humayun and members of his household were still in the Palace at Murshidabad in the 1960s. Hutchisson exhibited a portrait, Munoo of Benares, at the Royal Academy in London in 1839 (no. 1072).
For a large painting depicting A Nautch at the Court of Humayun Jah, Nawab of Bengal (1810-1838) at Murshidabad, with the Nawab and the British Resident seated on the right, see Sotheby's, Howard Hodgkin: Portrait of the Artist, 24th October 2017, lot 32.
Saleroom notices
For a full biographical note on the artist's life and career, please contact the Islamic and Indian Department.