487 - Frederick Edward Hulme,

Frederick Edward Hulme, British 1841-1909- Columbine and lesser snapdragon; watercolour on paper, signed 'F.E. Hulme' (lower right), accompanied by a letter, dated 2 February 1909 and stamped 'Newark / Kew Gardens', from the artist to Mr. Fletcher, thanking the latter for saying 'pretty things about my book and its illustrations', and presenting him with 'one of the original drawings', 15.3 x 10.2 cm. Provenance: Mr. Fletcher, to whom bequeathed by the artist in 1909. with Martyn Gregory, London [VF590]. Note: Frederick Edward Hulme, son of a landscape painter and grandson of a porcelain painter, studied at the South Kensington School of Art, now the Royal College of Art. An accomplished amateur botanist, he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1869. A year later he became a drawing teacher at Marlborough College in Wiltshire. During his time there, he started working on Familiar Wild Flowers, an illustrated botany book published in nine volumes throughout his life.In 1885 he became a lecturer for the Agricultural Association, and in 1886 he was appointed Professor of Freehand and Geometrical Drawing at King's College London. He lived in Kew, where he must have painted the present work and where he wrote the letter that accompanies it. As mentioned in his note to 'Mr. Fletcher', 'Columbine and lesser snapdragon' is probably an illustration for one of his books, possibly for one of the volumes of Familiar Wild Flowers—although we have not been able to find it. A similar image illustrates the entry 'Columbine' (vol. VI, p. 41). The present lot, and Hulme's heart-felt letter, acquire a melancholic meaning when one discovers that the artist passed away in his home in Kew on 10 April 1909, just over two months after having signed the epistle and having bequeathed his watercolour to 'Mr. Fletcher', who had said "pretty things about my [Hulme's] book and its illustrations'.