Paintings by Sidney Richard Percy

 

   
Left: Llanberis, North Wales, 1871, Center: Kilchurn Castle, undated, and Right: On the Road to Loch Turret, Crieff, Perthshire, 1868.

 
Left: Llyn-y-Ddinas, North Wales. 1873, and Right: Loch Scavaig, Isle of Skye, 1883.

 

More Paintings and Information

 

Paintings by Sidney Richard Percy

Williams Family Tree

Sidney Richard Percy in later years, when he had grown a beard.

Sidney Richard Williams, called Percy, was born in 1822 in London, as the fifth son of the English landscape painter Edward "Old" Williams. He had five brothers, all of whom became landscape painters also, and though born Williams, he changed his surname to Percy to disitinguish his art from that of the rest of his family.

Sidney Richard quickly established himself as one of the leading landscape artists in Britain, and his work was much sought after in his own lifetime. His most famous patron was perhaps the Queen Consort Prince Albert, who viewed Percy's painting of Llyn Dulyn, North Wales on exhibit in 1854 at the Royal Academy. The prince subsequently purchased the painting and presented it to Queen Victoria that same year on Albert's own birthday of August 26. This painting is still in the Royal Collection and can be viewed in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Percy is best known for his landscapes, often of grazing cows set against backgrounds of distant mountains, with skies darkened by gathering clouds. Many of his paintings also show a pair of gypsies, one standing and the other sitting, at one side or the other of a road or lake where the cows have gathered. He usually painted in earth tones and soft greens, with accents from a variety of pastel hues, all illuminated by shafts of sunlight, so that the overall effect is soft and subtle. He also painted with an amazing degree of detail -- an unattributed reviewer supposedly remarking that "his rocks and stones were sufficiently accurate to have served as illustrations to the writings of Sir Roderick Murchison", the well-known 19th-century British geologist. When queried at his house on Mulgrave Road, Sutton Parish, Surrey during the 1881 English Census, Percy gave his occupation simply as "landscape painter".

signatures from some of Sidney Richard Percy's paintings

The paintings of Sidney Richard Percy were displayed, one posthumously, from 1842 to 1886 (215 paintings) at all the major exhibitions of his day, including the Royal Academy (73 paintings), the Suffolk Street Gallery of the Royal Association of British Artists (77 paintings), and the British Institution (48 paintings).

Sidney Richard Percy died prematurely on April 16, 1886 at Woodseat in Sutton, Surrey, due to complications of a horse riding accident, in which his leg had to be amputated. Wikipedia Article

Today, examples of his work can be seen in several British museums and galleries, most of which are on the Art UK website.

Two Pictures of SR Percy that were probably taken on the same day, as he is wearing exactly the same clothes in both. Thus, because the left picture has July 30th, 1856 written on the back, it is probably the date for both. The right picture is incorrectly identified in Jan Reynolds book on the Williams Family of Painters as Henry John Boddington, but both are clearly SR Percy.

• Atkinson Art Gallery Collection
• Cellardyke Town Hall
• Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull (two paintings)
• Hartlepool Museums
• Hertford Museum
• Leeds Art Gallery
• Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield
• National Trust, Penryhn Castle
• New Walk Museum, Leicester
• Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery
• Paisley Museum and Art Galleries (two paintings)
• Salford Art Gallery and Museum
• Shipley Art Gallery
• Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery
• Tate Gallery, London (not on display, but in the collection)
• Temple Newsom House, Leeds (two paintings)
• Victoria Art Gallery, Bath (two paintings)
• Wollaton Hall, Nottingham
• Wolverhampton Gallery
• York City Art Gallery

Other Museums not on the Art UK website
• Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, (Osborne House on the Isle of Wight), England
• Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada
• Maharaja Fatesingh Museum, Baroda, India (two paintings)
• National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales

The Early Years of Sidney Richard Percy's Career

Though undated this is almost certainly one of Percy's earlier paintings. Note the crudeness of the cows and people compared to his later works. Also, the main subject is architectural with two buildings - one in ruins and one new, and both partially obscured by trees. His later works typically emphasized cows in open pastures and meadows with mountain backgrounds draped in clouds. Lastly, the Thames River setting indicates an early period in Percy's career when he was still being mentored by his father and older brothers. He would move on as he got older to scenes northern England, Wales and Scotland.

Another undated work, this one is very reminiscent of a painting by Percy's older brother George Augustus Williams, who specialized in winter scenes with snow.

Sidney Richard Percy began exhibiting his works in major exhibitions as early as 1842. This early work of his was painted in 1845 when he was about 24 years old, and it is very similar to in theme and execution to something that his older brother and mentor Henry John Boddington might have painted.

A painting very similar in theme and execution to the above work, but with more clouds.

Another early painting. It lacks the symmetry that would come to characterize his later works, but it does feature the cows that he later became famous for.

Exhibited in 1852 as entry no. 1311 at the Royal Academy of Art, this scene of a horse on a backcountry road is not the typical Sidney Richard Percy painting, and shares elements found in many paintings by his older brother Henry John Boddington.

Exibition at the British Institution - An Early Recognition

Sidney Richard Percy - 1852 - Spring

"We this week engrave one of Mr. Sidney Percy's two pictures -- 'Spring', a woodland scene, with some felled timber lying in a remarkably bold manner across the picture. It is all painted with great clearness and crispness of outline, under a broad, bright, but cold sky. We fancy we feel our teeth chattering in the north-east wind as we look at it. Nevertheless, it is a clever picture, and, when mellowed down by time, or a little judicious glazing, would not be a disagreeable one in a warm room."

Published in the The Illustrated London News, March 13, 1852, p. 217.

Early Scottish and Welsh Mountain Scapes

Another early Sidney Richard Percy landscape, but one that shows elements similar to paintings by his older brother Arthur Gilbert - dark colors, earth tones, and few if any figures, trees, or animals cluttering up the landscape.

Llyn Dulyn (Black Lake in Welsh) is a small lake in the mountains of Caernarvonshire, about eight miles south east of Bangor, Wales. When Prince Albert, the the Queen Consort, saw this painting on exhibit in 1854 at the Royal Academy, he purchased it and presented it to his wife Queen Victoria on August 26, 1854 for his birthday. The painting is still in the Royal Collection, and can be viewed at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

This is a transitional painting that shows elements of both Henry Boddington and Arthur Gilbert, but also shows some of the features that came to characterize Sidney Richard Percy's paintings of the 1860s and 1870s. The stark mountain landscape and the dark tones speak to Gilbert's style, whereas the sunlight shining through the clouds and reflecting off the water speaks to Boddington. However, the cows in the foreground and the symmetry of the work are classic Percy.

The Classic Period of his Career

Sidney Richard Percy - 1856 - Storm Gathering on Cader Idris
 
This is an important painting in Sidney Richard Percy's career, but as it is in a private collection, we do not have a color image for it. This was one of the first paintings for which he received widespread accolades, and he repeated its successful theme of "cows and clouds" often in the years to come. As such, it set the stage for the style and theme for which he is best known. It was displayed in 1856 as entry No. 38 at the National Institution of the Fine Arts Exhibition at the old Portland Gallery on 316 Regent Street, London. The Illustrated London News (March 29, 1856, p 320) wrote that, "'A Storm Gathering on Cader Idris, by S.R. Percy is a bold and powerful study - darkness prevailing over the canvas, but broken fitfully with dashes of light.".

This painting, along with the above Storm Gathering on Cader Idris, are the two earliest, among all the examples we have collected, that have all the elements of a classic work by Sidney Richard Percy - cows and clouds, with figures on one side, and mountains in the background.

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

Exhibited as no. 938 in 1859 at the Royal Academy. It was sold by Christie's of London on 16 May 1927, lot 131 as Our River. It was then sold again by Christie's on Dec. 11, 2014 for £32,500, which comes out to $50,934 using 11/14/14 conversion factors.

Also known simply as "Cattle Watering", this is one of the more popular Sidney Richard Percy paintings, judging by its wide availability on the internet as posters and prints. This painting shows the features that characterize Sidney Richard's paintings during the 1860s and 1870s - cows, clouds, and water, with a horizintal symmetry in which clouds, peaks, or a path dominate the center of the painting, and a vertical symmetry defined by a foreground of grass in the lower third, mountains and/or water in the middle, and sky above.

Sidney Richard Percy - 1861 - A Rest on the Roadside

Sidney Richard Percy was a competent photographer, and he based many of the figures in his paintings on his own photographs, which often depicted gypsies he photographed on the outskirts of the Barnes and Wimbledon Common. Compare the detail below from "A Rest on the Roadside" to Percy's photograph shown below. The same women appear in other of his paintings, including "Storm Gathering on Cader Idris", dated 1856, and "August...North Wales", which was painted 1862 and is shown below and left beneath the photograph. Note the similarity in layout between the 1861 and 1862 paintings. Variations on probably what are these same women appear in "Near Dolgelly" and "Mountain Lanscape with Figures and Cattle by a Lake".>

More Photographs
(click here)

One of the more popular Sidney Richard Percy paintings, judging by its wide availability on the internet as posters and prints. The two gypsy women shown in the photo above by Percy, appear in this painting as well.

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

Close to hundred years after Percy painted this view, a dam was built in this area in 1964 to create the 378-acre Loch Turrett reservoir. We do not know if this view is below the modern dam, or if it now lies below the reservoir, but either way this painting captures a pristine scene from a different era.

Exhibited in 1870 as entry no. 235 at the Royal Academy of Art.

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

This is one of several paintings created by Percy of Llyn Dinas, a lake in the Nantgwynant valley in Snowdonia, North Wales. The prominent peak in the distance is the 'Cnicht', which some call the ‘Matterhorn of Wales'. This version of Llyn Dinas has the interesting overhanging rocks on the right. An 1875 version of Llyn Dinas shows the other side of the lake.

Exhibited in 1874 as entry no. 253 at the Royal Academy of Art.

An interesting study, in which the painting surrounds a prominent peak and forces the gaze of the viewer to the very center of the painting. Percy seldom employed this type of symmetry, but he uses it quite effectively here. The peak of course is Ben Nevis of Scotland, which is the highest summit in the British Isles.

Sidney Richard Percy's fame and reputation as a landscape painter really began to grow after the successful 1856 exhibition of his painting "Storm Gathering on Cader Idris". This led him to paint Cader Idris several more times in the years following his early success. This view of Cader Idris is from 1874, when his painting career was probably at its peak.

An interesting print of this painting is shown below the oil on canvas. Many subtle differences distinguish the print from the original, most significant being the absence of the gypsies left of the lake. The print was likely made from a hand-painted copy, perhaps by Percy himself, in which the gypsies were purposely left out. Although many admirers today feel that such figures add charm to Percy's paintings, some critics in his day decried the use of this devise, claiming that his figures ruined what otherwise were perfectly good landscapes.

Cader Idris is also one of the few paintings by Percy to have sold for over $100,000 at auction, when it realized £73,875 ($112,109) on July 11, 2013 at Christie's in London. Another high-priced painting of his is a very similar landscape that is shown on the right. It sold for $195,656 in 2000 at Phillips in London as Landscape with Cattle and Figures, 1875. It then sold for $147,259 in 2008 at Sotheby's in London, under the new name of Lever's Waters, Coniston, 1875. Percy's paintings generally sell for much less.

Another of the more popular of Sidney Richard Percy's works. In fact, it is probably the most widely available of all his paintings on the internet. It is undated, and was never exhibited, but the style is similar to some of his other landscapes from the 1870s.

One of the more popular Sidney Richard Percy paintings, judging by its wide availability on the internet as posters and prints. Llyn Dinas is a lake in the Nantgwynant valley in Snowdonia North Wales, and the mountain in the distance is called the 'Cnicht', but is also described as the ‘Matterhorn of Wales'. Percy first painted Llyn Dinas in 1853, and exhibited it at the Royal Academy the following year. Another version was exhibited in 1864, and there is also an 1873 version of Llyn Ddinas with a different view. The colors of this 1875 version are more vibrant than the others, with greater symmetry of form.

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

Later Years of his Career

Percy painted Cader Idris many times, but this view is different than the others in that he obviously hiked to the top of a mountain to obtain this perspective of looking down on the lake. Bear in mind that Percy in 1878 turned 56-years old, and he had lived a comfortable lifestyle for many years, which meant that he was probably not used to strenuous hikes. Compare this painting to two views he painted from down in the valley below - "Cader Idris, North Wales, 1874". and "Fording the River Mawddach, Cader Idris, North Wales, 1883".

Sidney Richard Percy

A classic Sidney Richard Percy painting from his later years, featuring cows and storm clouds with both a winding road and a stream in stark mountain setting.

  Sidney Richard Percy - 1883 - Loch Scavaig, Isle of Skye

Exhibited in 1883 as entry no. 162 at the Royal Academy of Art. Percy seldom painted boats, but this painting shows that he was equally at home painting scenes of the sea at twilight, as he was painting clouds and cattle. Shown on the right is a photograph that Percy took of a similar view of the harbor at Loch Scavaig.

Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy

"Potboilers" and Field Studies

Sidney Richard Percy - c.1870? - Unsigned watercolor

The watercolor on the left was passed down through Percy's family by his granddaughter Sidney Dolores Bunce, (neé Percy), and it may be an example of the type of painting that Percy's son Herbert Sidney Percy would call "potboilers", which were simple watercolors on paper, quickly executed, and often sold on the spot, "to put food on the table". It may also be a field study from which a more carefully executed, oil-on-canvas work was to be painted on commission back in the studio. This watercolor in fact is quite similar to Percy's oil-on-canvas painting of "Blea Tarn", Westmorland" (1870), which is shown on the right. Another similar painting is "Highland Landscape" (1872).

Miscellaneous Paintings

This painting of a mountain lake in Italy was no doubt executed by Percy during an 1865 trip that he made to the continent.

This is an oil painting that is so unlike any other example of Percy's work that we have seen, that it is a bit of an enigma. It was sold in a major art gallery, and is said to be signed and dated. The rocky crag in the background, and the burros bearing packs in the foreground are more Alpine than British in character. It is remiscent to Alpine paintings by two of Percy's brothers -- "A View of the Alps" by Henry John Boddington, and "A View of the Dolomites" by Alfred Walter Williams.

Three paintings that deviate from Percy's usual theme of mountain landscapes with cattle, all three of these figure studies are signed, but none dated.

Photographs by Sidney Richard Percy

Sidney Richard Percy was a competent photographer, and he based many of the figures in his paintings on his own photographs, which often depicted gypsies that he photographed on the outskirts of the Barnes and Wimbledon Common. The draped wall evident in the upper row of photographs indicates that some of these scenes were probably staged, possibly even in Percy's own backyard. A prestigious 1868 First Class silver medal that he won from the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Institute may very well have been in the Photography Section (II) for Amateur submissions of photographs.

Family members photographed about 1870 by Sidney Richard Percy. Note that the same background appears in all five portraits.
From left to right are Edward Charles Williams (brother), Alfred Walter Williams (brother), Gordon Fairlam Percy (son), Edith
Maude Percy (daughter), and Clara Boddington (sister-in-law). All were probably photographed at Percy's home, on the same day.