Somerset & Wood Fine Art

Somerset & Wood Fine Art Somerset & Wood was born out of a shared love of art, history, design & collecting. We offer selecte We have a passion for English antique art.

Somerset & Wood was born out of a shared love of art, history, design and collecting. Our vision is to share this online through our blog, and to offer specially selected artworks for sale at very affordable prices. All our artworks are guaranteed original, one-off collectors’ pieces. We specialise in English 19th- and early 20th-century works on paper. With combined expertise from working in the

fine art trade and for national museums across the UK, we have an interest in researching and bringing lesser-known artists into prominence. And, most importantly, as collectors (‘curators’) ourselves, we deal only in works that we think are of value and would ourselves be excited to own. It is vital to us that our works are original and unique, because, to us, here lies the joy of art. An artwork is an authentic and tangible creation from a singular imagination. When viewed – held – owned, a connection forms between the creator and viewer. In a world where products are becoming increasingly disposable and transactions impersonal, we celebrate these personal connections, across centuries – and, with the global dialogues enabled by the online marketplace, across continents.

- https://somersetandwood.com

William Neave Parker (1910–1961) spent much of his career working for the Natural History Museum in London and his illus...
29/07/2026

William Neave Parker (1910–1961) spent much of his career working for the Natural History Museum in London and his illustrations were regularly reproduced in the London Illustrated News. He is particularly known his illustrations of prehistoric flora and fauna; his ambition was to bring scientific theories of natural selection and animal evolution to a non-specialist audience.

Parker’s work has become highly collectable, particularly for its place in the history of popular science. Our bird pictures, rendered simultaneously with great care and joyous vibrancy, embody the artist’s passion for the natural world. He was Chairman of the Council for Canine Defence and Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Zoological Society.

🛒 Search stock number KD-891 at somersetandwood.com
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William Neave Parker (1910–1961) spent much of his career working for the Natural History Museum in London and his illus...
29/07/2026

William Neave Parker (1910–1961) spent much of his career working for the Natural History Museum in London and his illustrations were regularly reproduced in the London Illustrated News. He is particularly known his illustrations of prehistoric flora and fauna; his ambition was to bring scientific theories of natural selection and animal evolution to a non-specialist audience.

Parker's work has become highly collectable, particularly for its place in the history of popular science. Our bird pictures, rendered simultaneously with great care and joyous vibrancy, embody the artist's passion for the natural world. He was Chairman of the Council for Canine Defence and Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Zoological Society.

🛒 Search stock number KD-891 at somersetandwood.com
🛒 View the full collection at somersetandwood.com
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We find that antique topographical views of the UK never cease to be popular. Our longstanding Collis collection, newly ...
25/07/2026

We find that antique topographical views of the UK never cease to be popular. Our longstanding Collis collection, newly added to this week, is a prime example—presumably feeding that desire for connection in space and time that we all have. There is something special about finding a picture of a place that means something to you, filtered through someone else's eyes, rendered by someone else's hand, and—in the case of our pictures—in a different time. Our Collis pictures are small and modest, but communicate a connection with her home landscapes of the South West. Clara Maria Augusta Jane Collis (c.1826–1905) was eldest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Collis (1784–1849), who served—and was severely wounded—at the Battle of Talavera in Spain, during the Peninsula War. The Collis family lived at Upcott House near Taunton in Somerset, then, on Charles Collis’s death, moved to nearby Netherclay House. The collection includes drawings of these family homes, along with numerous landscape watercolours recording Clara’s extensive British tours.

And if you're thinking Clara Maria Augusta Jane is a mouthful, she had a roll call of the most spectacularly named siblings I've encountered! : Hector Crabb Bartholomew; Frederica Swinhoe [or Everildre] Louisa; Algernon Charles Lukin Ridsdale; Windham Trevelyan Browne; Sarianne Lucas; Gustavus Wheatley Berry; and Augustus Randolph Adolphus !!

🛒 Search stock number JM-255 at somersetandwood.com
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We list dozens of new stock items every month. Sign up to our email newsletter via our website to receive first look whe...
16/07/2026

We list dozens of new stock items every month. Sign up to our email newsletter via our website to receive first look when new pictures are listed.

View all new stock at somersetandwood.com/collections/new-acquisitions

With another heatwave possibly on the way, this week we are at the seaside, with this brilliant 18th-century watercolour...
05/07/2026

With another heatwave possibly on the way, this week we are at the seaside, with this brilliant 18th-century watercolour depicting the monumental Martha Gunn (1726–1815), Brighton’s legendary ‘Dipper’, who helped women in and out of bathing machines in order to maintain their modesty when taking the waters. Martha Gunn was renowned for her strength and stamina, as well as her entrepreneurial spirit, capitalising on the new popularity of sea bathing. In a career that lasted nearly seventy years, her celebrity spread throughout the country and she became a favourite of George Augustus Frederick, the Prince of Wales.

The watercolour bears similarity to the street portraits of the provincial itinerant artist John Dempsey (1802–1877), particularly his subject ‘Bathing woman, Bridlington’, c.1825 [image 6] —but the subject, and the paper watermarked 1794, significantly predate Dempsey. The work is faintly inscribed on the verso ‘No.6 North Parade’ —is this North Parade Brighton, or possibly Bath? A number of the 18th-century caricaturists worked in Brighton, satirising the fashionable seaside resort of the extravagant Prince of Wales, including James Gillray, Robert Dighton and Thomas Rowlandson. The watercolour is rather in the vein of Dighton’s and Gillray’s caricatural figure portraits. Or perhaps the drawing was produced by one of Brighton’s numerous skilled profilists or silhouettists, who plied their trade in the town.

🛒 Search stock number KD-801 at somersetandwood.com
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The heatwave in the UK may have subsided, but this week we are at the seaside, with this brilliant 18th-century watercol...
05/07/2026

The heatwave in the UK may have subsided, but this week we are at the seaside, with this brilliant 18th-century watercolour depicting the monumental Martha Gunn (1726–1815), Brighton's legendary 'Dipper', who helped women in and out of bathing machines in order to maintain their modesty when taking the waters. Martha Gunn was renowned for her strength and stamina, as well as her entrepreneurial spirit, capitalising on the new popularity of sea bathing. In a career that lasted nearly seventy years, her celebrity spread throughout the country and she became a favourite of George Augustus Frederick, the Prince of Wales.

The watercolour bears similarity to the street portraits of the provincial itinerant artist John Dempsey (1802–1877), particularly his subject 'Bathing woman, Bridlington', c.1825 [image 6] —but the subject, and the paper watermarked 1794, significantly predate Dempsey. The work is faintly inscribed on the verso 'No.6 North Parade' —is this North Parade Brighton, or possibly Bath? A number of the 18th-century caricaturists worked in Brighton, satirising the fashionable seaside resort of the extravagant Prince of Wales, including James Gillray, Robert Dighton and Thomas Rowlandson. The watercolour is rather in the vein of Dighton's and Gillray's caricatural figure portraits. Or perhaps the drawing was produced by one of Brighton's numerous skilled profilists or silhouettists, who plied their trade in the town.

🛒 Search stock number KD-801 at somersetandwood.com
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We have a gorgeous group of 17th-century Japanese Tosa School paintings this week. Likely illustrating The Tale of Genji...
04/07/2026

We have a gorgeous group of 17th-century Japanese Tosa School paintings this week. Likely illustrating The Tale of Genji, or possibly another courtly tale, they resemble smaller examples in the Bodleian Library and Minneapolis Institute of Art (images 4 and 5). They were no doubt bound at one time and accompanied by calligraphy. The pictorial devices are fascinating: the 'blown-off roof' (fukinuki yatai) technique of exposing the interior drama within a building, and the horizontal cloud motifs in blue and gold, which were commonly used to create a sense of artifice and symbolism, and to suggest a conflation of time and space within a limited pictorial field.

🛒 Search stock number KD-798 at somersetandwood.com
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Interesting to learn this week about the keeping of bird menageries in 18th-century England, as symbols of wealth and En...
23/06/2026

Interesting to learn this week about the keeping of bird menageries in 18th-century England, as symbols of wealth and Enlightenment curiosity. Our new collection of bird illustrations by William Hayes (1735–1802) et al. (no less than seven members of his family or 'pupils' collaborated on his works) are a striking record of this endeavour. Hayes is known as the first artist to record a single private collection of live birds, his most famous commission being the illustration of the menagerie at Osterley Park, Middlesex, owned by Robert and Sarah Child. Osterley Park contained over ninety-seven different species of bird, cared for by a 'Menagerie Man' called Jonathan Chipps. Hayes's illustrations were hung in the menagerie, and subsequently published as 'Portraits of Rare and Curious Birds, with their Descriptions, from the Menagery of Osterley Park [sic]', 1794–1799.

Hayes's illustrative style was largely decorative and the acquisition of exotic birds was often more a matter of aesthetics than science, feeding a broader vogue for Asian decorative objects and styles; exotic birds would adorn not only in garden menageries but porcelain, textiles and wallpaper. Visiting Osterley Park in 1772, Agneta Yorke wrote to Lady Beauchamp Proctor that she thought it, ‘The prettiest place I ever saw, ’tis an absolute retreat, & fill’d with all sorts of curious and scarce Birds and Fowles, among the rest 2 Numidian Cranes that follow like Dogs, and a pair of Chinese teal that have only been seen in England before upon the India paper.'

🛒 Search stock number KD-678 at somersetandwood.com
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The miniature draughtsmanship in this drawing by the French artist Thomas Charles Naudet (1773–1810) is just beautiful. ...
20/06/2026

The miniature draughtsmanship in this drawing by the French artist Thomas Charles Naudet (1773–1810) is just beautiful. The North African Islamic wedding procession, titled 'Mariage Moresque', was reproduced in the French travel anthology 'Choix de voyages dans les quatre parties du monde, ou précis des voyages les plus intéressans, par terre et par mer, entrepris depuis l'année 1806 jusqu'à ce jour', published between 1821 and 1823. Naudet frequently travelled on the Continent, first spending time in Rome in 1809, where his portrait was drawn by his friend Ingres at the Villa Medici. He presented his works at the Salon regularly, between 1795 and his early death, in 1810, and his drawings were highly regarded by contemporary collectors, including Dominique Vivant-Denon, the first director of the Louvre.

🛒 Search stock number KD-681 at somersetandwood.com
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Address

54B Frome Road
Bradford-on-Avon
BA151LA

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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+441225864571

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