JOHN CLOW

1798-1871

John Clow is of interest because he was in possession of a JMW Turner watercolour described in a Winstanley sale as "lot 35 'The Gothic Arch' - Early specimen of the Master". Several lots from the same sale later appeared in the Preston-Berthon collection and it appears that 'The Gothic Arch' also featured in that collection; being properly identified as 'St. Augustine's Gate, Canterbury' (the small version now at Yale B1975.4.1764) in Christie's E. L. Berthon sale of May 15th 1891, lot 121.

The Winstanley sale mentioned above took place in 1852 when John Clow left his home at Ash House near Liverpool and retired, aged 54, to Smedley's Establishment in Matlock, Derbyshire where he appears in the 1871 Census. He died a few months later as shown in the probate register for 1877 (six years after his death).

Census - he is on page 3

Probate - page and extract

FreeBMD page and extract

Smedleys historic england link

It seems that the Winstanly sale represents the entire collection. The objective here is to find the source of Turner's 'The Gothic Arch' (St. Augustine's Gate, Canterbury).

Clow's collection included works purchased from the exhibitions of the Society of Painters in Watercolours, Pall-Mall. However, as these were exhibitions by living artists 'The Gothic Arch' (St. Augustine's Gate, Canterbury) cannot have come from this source.

An exhibition at Liverpool in 1839 is recorded in The Art Journal in January 1840, page 6. In it are found two watercolours by George Lance, a pair, which appear at lots 24 and 25 in Clow's Winstanley sale. This is currently the earliest source of Clow's collection and he was age 41 at this time which suggests that we should search for earlier aquisitions.