Monday, August 31, 2009

Frederic Lord Leighton - Mrs James Guthrie


c. 1864 - 66
oil on canvas
83 x 54.5"
Yale Centre
Exhited at the RA in 1866.
Showing perfectly Leighton's amazing ability to paint fabrics. She looks very pale and reportedly many sittings were cancelled due to her ill health. It seems very Venetian in style, and he was studying Venetian portraits of the 16th century at the time, after his visit to Venice in 1865.
Several critics have pointed out that his portraits are beautiful for their own sake and he makes no attempt to convey the personality of the sitter.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema - Silver Favourites


Opus CCCLXXIII
1903
oil on panel
27 1/4 x 16 5/8"
Manchester City Art
The silver refers to the Carp in the pond that the girl is feeding using her typanum. The use of banding for the sea creates a clever use of breadth in a very vertical painting. He struggled with some of the technical details and was rather late in delivering it to its buyer.

Harold Knight - The Girl and the Picture


signed Harold Knight l.r.
inscribed Oak Hill / St Buryan / Cornwall
oil on canvas
60 1/4 x 50.5"

Elizabeth Adela Forbes - Fetching Water


signed EFORBES l.l.
watercolour with gouache and black chalk
17 x 13"

Nico Jungman - An Elegant Lady


Pen, black ink, watercolour and bodycolour on paper laid down on canvas
49 x 18 1/4"
.
1872 - 1935.
Born in Amsterdam, and studied there but settled in England and exhibited at the RA and elsewhere. He travelled in Italy, France and Belgium but was interned in Germany in 1916. Illustrated books but was primarily a figure and landscape painter though he also worked as an etcher and restorer. This beautiful picture was originally framed in a striking art noveau frame.

Edward Seago - A Hunter outside a Stable


signed Seago/33 l.r.
oil on canvas
20 x 24"

Edgar Hunt









[The New Brood]
[An Intruder]
pair
1953
both oil on board
each 16 x 12"
[Cockeral and Hen]
[Chickens and Pigeons]
pair
1946
both oil on board
each 11 x 15"
[Youth and Experience]
1934
oil on canvas
12 x 16"
[On the Threshold - detail]
1931
oil on canvas
16 x 24"

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Thomas Benjamin Kennington - Reading the Letter


oil on canvas
41 3/4 x 31.5"
Thomas Kennington (1856 - 1916) was the father of Eric Kennington a well known portrait and genre painter who worked in London. Thoma's exhibited widely, including at the RA (1880 - 1916) and at first painted pictures of the poor but later specialised in painrings with psychological titles.

Frederic Lord Leighton - Winding the Skein


c. 1878
oil on canvas
19.5 x 63.5"
Art Gallery of New South Wales
A very popular picture and the print in 1884 by the Fine Art Society was widely sold. The same models from The Music Lesson have been used. If you look at the composition it is cleverly done, if perhaps formulaic. Its highly finished surface was criticised for giving the girls a rather 'waxy' look. The last of Leighton's paintings featuring model Connie Gilchrist.

Friday, August 28, 2009

John Dawson Watson - By the Studio Fire


1860
oil on canvas
22 1/4 x 17"
Watson studied at the Manchester School of Design and the RA Schools and went on to exhibit at the RA 1853 - 1890 amongst other places. He was also a prolific illustrator for periodicals like Good Words and did many book illustrations as well. It is not knowm, but presumed this was his own studio.

Alice Mary Havers




[The First Arrivals]
1881
signed A Havers l.r.
oil on canvas
24 x 51"
.
1850 - 1890.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Thomas Maybank - Come Unto these Yellow Sands


1906
oil on canvas
20 x 29"
exhibited at the RA in the same year
.
fl. 1898 - 1925.
A fairy and genre painter who is known to have worked in Beckenham, Croydon and Esther. He worked for Punch - 1902-4 and seems to have been inspired by the work of Richard Doyle. His subjects were often inspired by Shakespeare and this painting comes from lines in the Tempest, sung by Ariel.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

John Vine - Three Prize Berkshire Pigs


oil on canvas
c. 1865
20 x 24"
.
1808 - 1867.
An Essex artist who though physically handicapped specialised in animal portraits.

Henry O'Neil - The Last Farewell


oil on canvas
28 x 36"


In 1861 Henry Nelson O'Neil endeavoured to repeat the success that he had achieved with Eastward Ho! August 1857 (private collection), by exhibiting The Parting Cheer (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), which relates closely to the present painting. It is not clear whether The Last Farewell is a study for, or an earlier version of The Parting Cheer, but it differs significantly from the larger picture and is a complete composition.

Thomas Sidney Cooper - pair


[A Bull with a pair of sheep and a Goat]
[A Jenny with her foal and a flock of sheep]
pair
1844/5
each 11 x 15"
oil on panel

Walter Frederick Roofe Tyndale - Standing Guard


19 ¾ by 15 ¾ in.
signed l.l.: Walter Tyndale
oil on canvas

Monday, August 24, 2009

James Thomas Linnell - Firs and Furze


22 ½ by 31 ¼ in.
signed, titled, dated and inscribed on an artist's label attached to the stretcher: Firs and Furze/ James Thomas Linnell/ Red Hill/ Reigate/ Surrey/ 1854
oil on canvas
Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 34,850 GBP

William James Blacklock - Lakeland Mountains


18 by 24 in.
signed and dated l.c.: W J Blacklock 1853
oil on canvas
Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 51,650 GBP
Blacklock is a most intriguing figure. Born in London, the son of a bookseller and publisher, in 1818 the family returned to Cumberland – in which county they had been established since the 1730s – living at Cumwhitton. Blacklock returned to London in 1836 and lived there until 1850. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution – generally showing north country landscapes – and gained a respected position in metropolitan artistic life, his landscape paintings being admired by Turner and Ruskin among others. He appears to have been no direct contacts with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who were in any case much younger than him, but Blacklock would certainly have seen early works exhibited by members of the group and their associates. It is a matter of speculation as what European artists' works he may also have studied, with French painters such as Corot and Courbet sometimes mentioned as the inspiration of his work as a landscape painter.