SAWREY GILPIN (BRITISH 1733-1807) Swans nesting in a river landscape, circa 1790 Numbered 309 (lower right corner) Pen and brown ink, point of the brush and brown ink, watercolour, ruled black chalk border, on paper with watermark of the letters GR surmounted by a crown 19.5 x 32cm (7 3/4 x 12 1/2in) Provenance: Sir John Clement Witt  Thence by descent Literature: Morris R. Brownell, William Gilpin's 'Unfinished Business': The Thames Tour (1764), (London: The Walpole Society, 1993/94), vol. LVII, p. 78, note 61, illus. no. 45 The Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, hold two watercolours by Gilpin that appear to have a similar numbering system to the present work, presumably from an album or collection of works intended to have been engraved. Morris Brownell's article in The Walpole Society journal, op. cit., where the present work is illustrated, suggests that it depicts a 'nesting female on an osier isle protected by her threatening mate', and relates the scene to a humorous anecdote on swan behaviour from William Gilpin's 1764 Thames Tour.