Copy of ‘A Scene at the Mitre’ by Eyre Crowe (1857), published in The Bookman, September 1909
Medium: oil
Size: 21 x 24 inches (18.5 x 23.5 inches according to Sotheby’s catalogue 1979)
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1857
The picture was owned by the dealers Thomas Agnew and Sons when it was auctioned at Christie’s on 5 November 1861 on the occasion of Agnew’s retirement. It was bought in by Christie’s for £40 19s 0d. It was sold again by Christie’s on 3 May 1862 for £92 8s 0d and again bought in. On 7 December 1864 it was auctioned by Christie’s on behalf of the owners Hayward and Leggatt for £38 17s 0d. It was then sold to John Knowles. It was auctioned again by Christie’s on 7 April 1865, and sold to the art dealers Messrs Agnew for engraving purposes for £79 9s 0d. In October 1907 the engraving was published in Austin Chester, ‘The Art of Mr. Eyre Crowe, A.R.A.’, The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XXVI, credited to Messrs Henry Graves & Co Ltd, 6 Pall Mall, publishers of the large plate. It more recently came up for auction at Sotheby’s on 4 June 1969 and at Sotheby’s Belgravia on 19 March 1979.
The Reader, December 1864:
The Hayward and Leggatt Gallery. Some few months ago the public were startled by the account of the death of Mr. Leggatt, the eminent picture-dealer of Cornhill, which was occasioned by his swallowing a large iron nail in some soup supplied at the refreshment-room of the Rugby station. In consequence of his death, the above gallery, part of the stock-in trade of the firm of which he was a partner, was dispersed under the hammer of Messrs. Christie, Manson and Woods at the Gallery in Change Alley, Cornhill, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week … 281, Eyre Crowe – Dr Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith at the Mitre Tavern supping together, 24 in by 19 in, the engraved picture, 37 guineas
Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) 