Harry Davis. "Fish". Sporting Watercolour

Artist: Harry Davis. ( 1885-1970).

Title: "The Angler's catch".

Signed and dated 1910.

Watercolour. Framed.

Size: 9 1/2"x 13". Framed size: 18 1/2"x 21 3/4".

Now cleaned and framed. In very good ready to hang condition. Free UK delivery.

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Harry Davis was born in Worcester in 1885. His father, Alfred, was a china figure maker who worked for Royal Worcester and his grandfather Josiah Davis was one of the most talented gilders ever to work at the factory. Harry started out at St Peter’s School (where the museum is now housed) then at the age of 13, started work for Royal Worcester. Along with all the young boys he began doing very menial tasks and was formally apprenticed for seven years under the talented landscape artist, Ted Salter, on 3 November 1899.

Harry started work under the wing of his grandfather, who taught him to draw. He also learned an enormous amount from his tutor who taught the eager young boy to paint soft misty landscapes in the style of Corot. Harry was deeply shocked when Salter was killed, cycling over a level crossing, on his way to work in November 1902.

Ted Salter had reinforced Harry’s love of the countryside and of fishing. A keen fisherman, Harry was a follower of Isaac Walton, 17th century author of the most successful angling book of all time, ‘The Compleat Angler’. He perfected the difficult art of painting fish with amazing accuracy, possible only to someone with a deep understanding of fish and their behaviour. Harry was an active member of the Royal Worcester Fishing Club and later in life painted two wonderful trophies for the club to present to competition winners each year.

Harry quickly proved that he had tremendous natural ability and striking individuality. He was always versatile and painted a large range of subjects with ease. Landscapes with sheep, cattle, pigs, fish, snow scenes, London Scenes, polar bears, palaces and gardens, but he was never a ‘Jack of all trades’ he would accept nothing less than perfection in everything he did.

On the 4 July 1910 Harry married ‘Cissie’ (Ethel) Powell, a dressmaker, at St Peter’s church that stood next to the Severn Street factory. A fine watercolour of cattle drinking from a stream, given to the couple as a wedding present by their friend Harry Stinton, is now in the museum collection.

In 1919 all Royal Worcester employees who served for their country, including Harry Davis, were presented with an urn with their name, department and dates of service inscribed in gold.

In 1923 Royal Worcester received a prestigious £7,000 order from His Highness Shri Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji, Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar. The legendary Sussex and England cricketer owned palaces in both India and England and wanted a service to use in India illustrating his English estate and a set to use in England decorated with scenes of his Indian home. Harry Davis was given the challenge and designed and painted 24 of the most wonderful scenes. He worked from photographs, yet created views full of light and atmosphere with intricate architectural details that were widely admired.

Harry succeeded William Hawkins as foreman of the ‘Men Painters’ department in 1928. He was responsible for training many young apprentices and in the early 1930s to help with his teaching, Harry produced several sets of etchings for decorative plates, 12 castles, 12 cottages and 12 cathedrals. The scenes were expertly etched onto copper plates and then printed as an outline onto the china. Many artists in the department ‘filled in’ the colours over the printed designs adding their signature to the finished work. Sometimes Harry himself did some of the filling in, signing himself H SIVAD, Davis bac