Charles Lees

The Hon. Colin Tennant, England and St. Lucia

With Gooden & Fox, London

Christie's, London, 9 July 1993, lot 158

Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, Spain

Christie's, London, 30 May 2012, lot 203 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

The present picture is a superb sketch for The Golfers by Charles Lees (National Portrait Gallery of Scotland). The larger, finished painting was shown at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1851 and became one of the most important and widely-known paintings of golfers, dating from an early period in the history of the sport when two pairs of players often pitted against each other. It brilliantly captures the tension and energy of a moment of drama, during an encounter on the 15th green of the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. The match pictured was between Major Playfair and John Campbell of Glensaddell in Kintyre, against Sir David Baird and Sir Ralph Anstruther.

Many of the spectators are shown wearing pink coats indicating membership of the Royal and Ancient. At the centre of the group is Major Playfair (1786-1861, later Sir Hugh Lyon-Playfair) who has just made his stroke. Sir David Baird (1795-1852), 2nd Baronet of Newbyth, County Haddington, is bending forward to see the outcome of Major Playfair’s put. Sir David was one of the creators of the North Berwick Club in 1832, serving as its first captain. He invariably played in a tall hat such as can be seen in The Golfers. The bare-headed Sir Ralph Anstruther (1804-1863), 4th Baronet, of Balcaskie, stands beside the hole. Major Playfair's partner, John Campbell of Glensaddell, is seen further to the right with his hand on his hip. Campbell had been one of the knights in the famous Eglinton Tournament of 1839 and was described in 1875 by Robert Clark in his book Golf: A Royal and Ancient Game as 'a sort of Magnus Apollo with the fashionables of his day...He was a great sporting man and, though a heavy-weight, rode remarkable well to hounds. He went in a balloon from Heriot's Hospital to Fife when such a thing was considered a bold feat. He was a noble-looking man, pompous in his manners, and very irascible; In golf he was well known for his long drive.’

Charles Lees was born at Cupar, Fife, a talented pupil of Sir Henry Raeburn. He studying for a time in Rome and settled in Edinburgh where he established a successful and lucrative reputation as a portrait painter and also painted landscapes, historical subjects and scenes of Scottish genre. He particularly favoured subjects of outdoor sports. He became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1830 and eventually became its Treasurer. 

The Golfers was described in detail in Robert Browning's A History of Golf (New York, 1955, pp. 55-8); "Major Playfair appears, from an account of a handicap competition at North Berwick, to have been slightly the best, for he gives a stroke to Baird and Anstruther, who in turn are three strokes better than Campbell. But this was no doubt one of the attractions of foursome play. In matches between players of approximately equal skill, it was usual to strike a balance by giving of odds in the betting rather than by conceding a stroke or two in the round, and in foursome play any minor differnce could be adjusted in the arrangement of the partnerships, as in the present case, in which the strongest player and the weakest combined against the other two, with the added interest...that it is not always the strongest players who make the strongest partnerships. So pronounced was the taste for foursome play at this epoch that when the first attempt to hold a championship meeting was made, it was by foursomes...that it was decided."

The fame of The Golfers was dispersed by an engraving by by Charles F. Wagstaffe of Edinburgh, published on 20 December 1850 by Alexander Hill of 67 Princes Street, print-seller to Queen Victoria.