The London Zoo is selling off four paintings by the Swiss-born animal painter Jacques-Laurent Agasse, who moved to England in 1800. Despite their importance, the pictures had remained unknown to art historians. They are due to be sold at Christie’s in London, where they should fetch around £500,000.
The paintings were commissioned in the 1820s by Edward Cross, a dealer in exotic animals and owner of a menagerie open to the public. For a time his menagerie was located on Trafalgar Square, but was moved to allow the building of the National Gallery in 1829. The Agasse pictures later passed down Cross’s family and were bequeathed to the Zoological Society of London in 1950 by Mrs F.E. Emerson. The society runs the London Zoo in Regent’s Park and is also involved in research and conservation.
Although the bequest was noted in the society’s 1950 annual report, since then the paintings have not been published by the society or even recorded in the Agasse literature (they did not figure in Tate’s 1989 exhibition on the artist). The pictures were hung in private areas of the society’s offices and since 2013 they have been in store.
The trustees of the Zoological Society of London have now decided to sell the Agasse paintings. There are no legal impediments connected with the bequest and the Charity Commission has been informed. A Lion and a Lioness in a Rocky Valley (est £200,000-£300,000) and Two Bengal Tigers in a Savannah Landscape with a Man in a Tree (est £200,000-£300,000) are to be sold on 30 June. Giraffes with Impala in a Landscape (est £40,000-£60,000) and Elk in a River Landscape (est £40,000-£60,000) are to be sold on 8 July.
A spokeswoman for the society says: “To continue to store and insure these paintings is adding a regular annual cost and the society feels it can do more good with funds from the sale.” The proceeds would help continue work for wildlife, “helping to conserve and protect some of the world’s most endangered animals, such as the Sumatran tiger”.