Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football, Golf & Sporting Memorabilia
To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
21st, 22nd & 23rd March 2025
Lot 221
Estimate: £20000/30000
‘Kent County Cricket Club 1906’. Very wide panoramic style oil painting on canvas by renowned artist Albert Chevallier Tayler, the painting finally completed in 1906 as a companion piece to the larger and famous painting of ‘Kent v Lancashire at Canterbury 1906’. The portrait panel painting with central image and title, in banner, depicting portraits of Lord Harris and George Marsham, head and shoulders, within decorative cameo panels with title below. To the right and the left of this central image are portraits of the players who did not play in the Kent v Lancashire match, Kenneth Hutchings, ‘Wally’ Hardinge, Edward Dillon, Frank Woolley, Arthur Day, Alec Hearne, William Fairservice, John Hubble and Sammy Day plus former Kent Captains W.H. Patterson and Frank Marchant both portrayed in similar decorative cameo panels. The four portraits in cameo panels have their heraldic arms of their Universities and above and below the central panels are the arms of Canterbury and Kent County Cricket Club. The artwork was originally commissioned by Lord Harris, a very prominent figure in Kent cricket. The painting is not signed by Chevallier Tayler. The painting is framed in gilt wood and has brass name plaques running along the lower edge identifying each portrait. The painting measures 2.3 metres (seven feet five inches) wide and 43cm (17 inches) tall. This historic artwork was originally hung directly below the main panoramic painting of the Kent v Lancashire cricket match in 1907 and has been hung in the pavilion until recently, marking 118 years since it was first revealed to the cricket club and the public. A unique opportunity to acquire a piece of Kent and cricket history
The famous Kent v Lancashire 1906 painting which hung above this panel portrait, was sold in 2006 for £600,000, a record price for a cricket painting. It now hangs outside the Long Room at Lord’s for all to enjoy. Due to a historic misunderstanding about the origin of the panel, it was not included in the original sale of the painting. However it has now been established that the two pieces are in fact connected and the portrait panel is being offered for the first time. The history behind the artwork is detailed in Jonathan Rice’s book ‘Stories of Cricket’s Finest Painting: Kent v Lancashire 1906, which provides insight into the significance of the painting and its place in cricketing history. Rice records In a minute of Kent’s Management Committee in 1907 when Tayler was hard at work on the main painting it was recorded “The Artist had agreed to add a panel to the picture, on which he would paint portraits of Lord Harris, George Marsham, W.H. Patterson and Frank Marchant...’. Two of of the players, Hutchings and Dillon, who also feature on the main painting, also appear on the panel due to them fielding so far from the bat on the larger painting. They are a very handsome set of portraits with the coat of arms of Kent, Canterbury, Oxford and Cambridge among the heads. Proceeds from the sale of the painting will be used to help fund a new visitor centre and museum at Canterbury to open up the club’s broad collection of unique Kent cricket items to a new generation.
Lord Harris commissioned both paintings to celebrate Kent’s inaugural County Championship winning season of 1906. He chose artist Albert Chevallier Tayler for the paintings. Chevallier Tayler (1862 to 1925) was an English artist who specialised in portrait and genre painting. He is most known for his twelve-year involvement with the Newlyn School of painting. Tayler was an avid cricketer, and in 1905 produced a set of twelve watercolours of famous and mostly royal cricket players. Lord Leverhulme used the series to produce lithographs and advertise his Lever Brothers soap products. The promotion proved popular and besides the painting Tayler is most famous, cricket wise, for his paintings entitled ‘The Empire’s Cricketers’. The prints of which were originally published in twelve parts, each containing four plates in 1905. He also painted a small oil on canvas work entitled ‘Eton v Harrow at Lord’s 1886 which is part of the M.C.C. Collection.
Lord Harris commissioned both paintings to celebrate Kent’s inaugural County Championship winning season of 1906. He chose artist Albert Chevallier Tayler for the paintings. Chevallier Tayler (1862 to 1925) was an English artist who specialised in portrait and genre painting. He is most known for his twelve-year involvement with the Newlyn School of painting. Tayler was an avid cricketer, and in 1905 produced a set of twelve watercolours of famous and mostly royal cricket players. Lord Leverhulme used the series to produce lithographs and advertise his Lever Brothers soap products. The promotion proved popular and besides the painting Tayler is most famous, cricket wise, for his paintings entitled ‘The Empire’s Cricketers’. The prints of which were originally published in twelve parts, each containing four plates in 1905. He also painted a small oil on canvas work entitled ‘Eton v Harrow at Lord’s 1886 which is part of the M.C.C. Collection.