Duntisbourne Rouse etching by Frederick Landseer Griggs, £3000 at Mallams.
Whitfield was managing director of Christie’s King Street and an instrumental figure in setting up Christie’s South Kensington.
He was also the son of the poet and writer Christopher Whitfield who was an early friend of the potter Michael Cardew and a supporter of the English etcher and illustrator Frederick Landseer Griggs (1876-1938).
Several of Griggs’ works were offered in a group of English pastoral prints from Whitfield’s collection that sold well, including Duntisbourne Rouse, one of the artist’s more sought-after compositions.
Depicting sheep grazing below the ancient stone building of St Michael’s Church in the Cotswold village of Duntisbourne Rouse, the 5 x 4in (14 x 12cm) etching was knocked down at £3000, six times the top guide.
The Sheep of His Pasturewood engraving by Edward Calvert, with provenance to Samuel Palmer, £4400 at Mallams.
Another highlight was a small 2 x 1½in (5 x 8.5cm) engraving The Sheep of His Pasturewood by Edward Calvert (1799-1893) that sold for a multi-estimate £4400, one of the highest prices achieved at auction for a work by the artist.
Like much of his early work, the c.1828 engraving was greatly inspired by William Blake’s woodcuts for Robert Thornton’s Virgil of 1821.
Calvert became a member of the Blake-influenced group The Ancients which met at Samuel Palmer’s house in Shoreham, Kent, in the later 1820s and early 1830s.
The engraving had been owned by Palmer, according to a note on the back.
