BG Windus commissioned John Scarlett Davis to paint his collection in Library in his home in Tottenham. Of the thirty-one drawings on display in this Davis's view, twenty can be easily identified, and other two or three tentatively so, while the identity of the others is masked by the oblique angle at which they hang or the reflectivity of the glass covering them. The paintings identified by the art historian, Eric Shanes, are listed below. The painting by Scarlett Davis is now in the British Museum.
It is, in all events, utterly impossible to inspect these drawings without being satisfied of his wonderful genius. He is largely indebted to Mr Windus for determining a matter about which - strangely - there is some doubt, for many just critics and sensible persons turn, dissatisfied, from what they consider the exaggerated deformities of his later works. We are not of those who do so; we can see in his wildest perpetrations proofs of the highest talent, and believe he has painted nothing he had not seen - nothing that is not TRUE. In this collection, however, while there is ample to maintain his right to rank as the first among living artists, and scarcely second to any among the dead, there is not one of which the least imaginative, or the most jealous of altering fact, can for a moment disapprove.
On the same wall beyond the door, and partly hidden by it, are two drawings which given the hanging of works on this side of the room and the facing-wall, would also appear to be England and Wales watercolours.
but many of the paintings closest to the left edge of the painting have been identified.
​we will go down and see him (he lives in Tottenham), and I can ensure you a treat.
To complete the watercolour Scarlett Davis included Windus's son, William, and daughter, Mary.
Only one of the great many books on view is titled. It stands upright on the left, a large editon of Faust.
Perhaps Scarlett Davis knew that the medieval alchemist had turned base metals into gold.
Turner certainly achieved something comparable on the walls up in Tottenham.