WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1767-1816)

STUDY OF AN ARMOURED CHINESE SOLDIER HOLDING A FLINTLOCK MUSKET
With a head study in pencil u.r.
Indistinctly inscribed u.r. & numbered u.m. 13
Watercolour over black chalk on buff wove paper
21 x 14.3 cm
 
PROVENANCE
William Beckford (1760-1844), Fonthill Abbey;
By descent to his son-in-law, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852);
By descent to the 12th Duke of Hamilton, by whose heirs sold, Sotheby's, Hamilton Palace (sale held on site), 30.06.1882, lot 146 
('Alexander (W.) Dress and Manners of the Chinese, 50 original water-colour Drawings, from which the Engravings in his book were taken, mounted on tinted paper, Russia extra, leather joints, gilt edges, by C.) [sold for £21];
The Earl of Derby;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, South Kensington, 17.06.2015, lot 56
 
LITERATURE
Engraved for William Alexander's Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese, London (1814), pl. 13;
Cf. P. Connor & S. Legouix, William Alexander: An English Artist in Imperial China (exhib. cat.), Brighton (1981);
Cf. F. Wood, 'Closely Observed China: From William Alexander’s Sketches to his Published Work’, British Library Journal, vol. 24 (1998) pp. 98-121