A pair of highly decorative paintings were sourced recently from a distinguished country house collection in the Cotswolds, west England, where they have spent at least the last fifty years.

Each painting displays a long vista towards the left towards a country house in the distance, which is a recognisable technique frequently used by Cradock in his compositions.

Marmaduke Cradock (Somerset 1660-London 1716) was an English painter of birds and other animals. Horace Walpole wrote that 'I have seen some pieces by his hand which he painted with a freedom and a fire that entitles them to more distinction'. According to Walpole, Cradock deliberately shunned aristocratic patronage. 'He worked in general by the day, and for dealers who retailed his works; possessing that conscious dignity of talent which made him hate to be employed by men whose birth and fortune confined his fancy, and restrained his freedom'.
His work was greatly influenced by painters of birds such as Melchior d'Hondecoeter, Pieter Casteels and Jacob Bogdani, however Cradock tended to paint domestic English birds and common wild species rather than the exotic varieties chosen by these other artists.