John Preston Neale
RA Collection: Art
A detailed landscape drawing of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, with a group of figures in the right foreground and the bay with ships in the distance. Neale began his career as a Post Office clerk but later became a professional artist, partly through his friendship with John Varley. He exhibited views of South Wales at the Royal Academy in 1814-15 and it possible that this drawing is connected to the same visit. He also exhibited views of North Wales in 1805, 1806 and 1809.
This work comes from one of sixteen volumes of Royal Academy Annual Exhibition catalogues that were collected and extra-illustrated by the lawyer and antiquarian Edward Basil Jupp F.S.A. (1812 - 1877). The catalogues span the period from the first annual exhibition in 1769 up to 1875. Jupp added drawings, prints, letters and autographs by, or referring to, Academicians and other exhibitors at the Academy's annual exhibition.
E.B. Jupp was a solicitor who married Eliza Kay, daughter of the architect William Porden Kay. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a clerk of the Carpenters' Company, of which he published a history. Jupp amassed a large collection of paintings by British and Dutch artists, drawings, prints, books and porcelain most of which was sold after his death, at Christie's in February 1878.
Many of the drawings in Jupp's Royal Academy extra-illustrated volumes were bought from art sales during the 1860s. He was also acquainted with a number of contemporary artists and several drawings in the later volumes (along with many of the letters and autographs) were sent from the artists themselves.
64 mm x 100 mm