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Auction: 11007 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 159

An Unusual Group of Four to Sir Oswald Brierly, Marine Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria, Who Accompanied Captain Henry Keppel in H.M.S. St. Jean d´Acre to the Baltic and Black Seas During the Crimea War 1854-55, And Sketched the English and French Fleets in Action a) Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Order of Osmania, Fourth Class breast Badge, 80mm including Star and Crescent suspension x 60mm, silver, gold suspension and applique, and enamel, with rosette on riband b) Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Order of the Medjidieh, Fourth Class breast Badge, 70mm including Star and Crescent suspension x 55mm, silver, gold suspension and applique, and enamel, with rosette on riband c) Greece, Kingdom, Order of the Redeemer, 2nd type, Officer´s breast Badge, 56mm including crown suspension x 34mm, gold and enamel d) Turkish Crimea, Sardinian die, privately manufactured Officers´ type, with ring and ball suspension, extremely fine, mounted in a fitted glazed frame with a portrait photograph of the recipient, and the following related items: - A print of H.M.S. Mæander 44 Guns, ´Shortening Sail for Anchoring´, Rio, June 9th 1851, by Oswald W. Brierly, slightly damaged - A print of H.M.S. Agamemnon 91 Guns, ´Getting under weigh from Spithead, 1853, by Oswald W. Brierly, slightly damaged - A print of the America ´Winning the Match at Cowes for the Club Cup, August 22nd 1851, from the original sketch taken on the spot by Oswald W. Brierly - Letter from the recipient to Major W.M. Collins, undated, signed ´Oswald W. Brierly´ - BASSETT, Marnie, Behind the Picture, H.M.S. Rattlesnake´s Australia and New Guinea Cruise, 1846-50, Melbourne 1966, 112pp, including a copy of a sketch made by Oswald Brierly, casebound with dust jacket (4) Estimate £ 600-800 Sir Oswald Walters Brierly was born in Chester in May 1817, the son of a doctor and amateur painter. After attending the Academy of Henry Sass in Bloomsbury, he went to Plymouth to study naval architecture and rigging, and his first exhibits accepted by the Royal Academy were of H.M.S. Pique and Gorgon at Plymouth in 1839. In 1841 he sailed for Sydney, New South Wales in the yacht Wanderer, and briefly settled for a time there and also in Auckland, New Zealand. In 1848 the Royal Naval surveyor, Captain O. Stanley, offered to take him in H.M.S. Rattlesnake on a survey of the north and east coasts of Australia and he went on two voyages, keeping a valuable record with his drawings. In 1850 Captain the Hon. Henry Keppel asked him to join him aboard H.M.S. Mæander, which cruised in the Pacific and off the west coast of South America, before returning to England via the Magellan Straits in July 1851; the following month whilst still in Portsmouth he watched and sketched the yacht America win the cup which bears her name. In 1854 Keppel was to accompany the Baltic Fleet in H.M.S. St. Jean d´Acre, 101 Guns, and again asked Brierly to accompany him. Many of Brierly´s watercolours of that first year of the Russian War were lithographed and published as ´The English and French Fleets in the Baltic 1854.´ In 1855 he again accompanied Keppel, this time to the Black Sea for the final operations of the Crimean War. On his return Her Majesty the Queen asked him to sketch the Fleet from the royal yacht during the great review on the Fleet´s return. In 1874 he was appointed Marine Painter in Ordinary to the Queen, and in 1885 was knighted. He also served as Curator of the Painted Hall and Greenwich Hospital Collections. He died at home in London in December 1894. Provenance: Pitt Rivers Museum Collection

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