Huntingdon Through History

This painting was one of six commissioned from Richard by Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd. to use as illustrations in their guides and calendars. The painting here was never published. Instead, another version was commissioned without the death mask and it was that one used in the 1962 calendar for March. See the calendar below and the painting in the catalogue, "Huntingdonshire" (1960). The "Huntingdon Through History" version stayed with the estate for a while, was eventually sold privately and later resold at two auctions, firstly at Bonhams in 2005 where it was titled "Huntingdon Through History", and next at Sotheby's in 2006 where it was given the title "Huntingdonshire". There is some chance of confusion here because the second version was also titled Huntingdonshire. What happened to the second version is unknown. Several of the RE paintings in the Shell collection were auctioned at Sotheby's in 2002, but "Huntingdonshire" was not among them.