Saturday, July 31, 2010
Frederic Lord Leighton - Study of a young girl
for 'Wide Wondering Eyes'
signed and dated 'Fred Leighton/1874'
black and white chalk, on brown paper
8.5 x 6"
Edmund George Warren - Cattle watering, summer
Price Realized £3,600
signed 'Edmund G. Warren' (lower right)
oil on canvas
18 x 26 1/8 in. (45.7 x 66.3 cm.)
Kathleen Peake - Portrait of a young girl, bust-length, in a white dress, holding a puppy
Price Realized £1,586
signed 'Kathleen Peak' (lower right)
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm.)
Edwin Masters - Villagers outside a tavern
oil on canvas
10 1/8 x 18¼ in. (25.8 x 46.3 cm.)
a pair (2)
Henry John Boddington - Gathering firewood
Price Realized £4,200
signed 'H. Boddington' (lower left)
oil on canvas
14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm.)
Benjamin Williams Leader - An angling party on a river bank
Price Realized £1,080
oil on panel
6 x 9¼ in. (15.2 x 23½ cm.)
Friday, July 30, 2010
(Sir) Herbert James Gunn - La Plage, Etretat
23 by 30.5 cm., 9 by 12 in
signed and dated l.r.: Herbert Gunn 1913; inscribed and dated on the reverse: La Plage, Etretat 1913
oil on board
Lowell Dyer - The Angel of the Annunciation
B.1856
signed 'Lowell Dyer' (upper right; and on the reverse)
oil on canvas
17½ x 14 in. (44.4 x 35.5 cm.)
Price Realized £705
(Sir) John Lavery - Morning After Storm, The Beach Tangier
50,000—80,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 108,000 GBP
63.5 by 76 cm., 25 by 30 in.
signed l.l.: J Lavery; inscribed, signed and dated on the reverse: MORNING AFTER STORM./ THE BEACH TANGIER/ JOHN LAVERY/ 1920
oil on canvas
‘..the chief note of Tangier is its whiteness. White houses, sands like snow and above all, a dazzling white atmosphere..’
(R.B.Cunninghame Graham as quoted in Kenneth McConkey, Sir John Lavery, 1993, p. 83)
Lavery first visited Tangier in 1891 almost certainly upon the recommendation of his fellow Glasgow Boys, Arthur Melville and Joseph Crawhall who had found great inspiration in the souks and bazaars of the exotic white-washed city. Almost as soon as he had unpacked his bags, Lavery began to busy himself painting small views of the sights he could see from the terrace on the rooftop of the Hotel Continental which looked one way into the bustling enigmatic city and the other way across the bay towards Andalucia and the Rock of Gibraltar. It has been said that Lavery's eye was enlivened by the regular supply of inspiring sights and colours in Tangier. The pictures he painted there certainly have a wonderful spontaneity and glimmer with refracted light. From 1891 onwards until the outbreak of World War I, Lavery returned to Tangier and by the beginning of the twentieth century, had acquired a house there, named Dar El Midfah or ‘House of the Cannon’ after a half buried cannon in the garden.
Nineteenth century artists and tourists had been drawn to Tangier to experience the exotic Arab way of life and initially Lavery had sought to paint the rather stereotyped view of the ancient city as painted by the likes of Ingres, Gerome and Constant. He soon found that the reality was far more interesting and by painting the people and sights as he found them, his appreciation of the city was magnified. He found that from the many rooftops the city laid itself open for him and that unobserved he could paint local people going about their daily lives in the streets and houses below and gain a very real and intimate understanding of his subject. Lavery was interested in the effects of light and shadow and in Tangier, the play of the African sun on the white painted walls of the houses and on the expanse of sand which made up the beach gave him ample opportunity to indulge this interest.
Of all the subjects to be painted at Tangier, it was the wide sweep of the beach that was amongst his most favourite compositions. Taken from the cliffs above, the present view looks west along the curve of the bay up to the White City of Tangier on the horizon, silhouetted against the clear sky. The composition combines both a Whistlerian focus on the horizontal relationship between sky, sea and shore, with the intense bright light of the North African coast. As is evident in the fluid impasto of the waves in contrast to the foreshortened beach, Lavery had clearly enjoyed painting what was one of his much-loved aesthetic arrangements.
John Atkinson Grimshaw - Golden Eve
100,000—150,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 198,400 GBP
30.5 by 46 cm., 12 by 18 in.
signed and dated l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw/ T15.92
oil on canvas
John Atkinson Grimshaw was arguably the most evocative painter of moonlit and evening scenes, who in the 1870s and 1880s, painted a series of pictures of the gloaming seen from the vantage of an elegant suburban road. Often a solitary female figure wanders homeward through the street, freed from the chores of daytime drudgery. Calmness and silence pervades these moody images in which the real subject is not the question of the woman's identity or destination, but the effects of the light upon her surroundings.
Golden Eve dates from the mid 1880s and demonstrates the sophistication of style to which the artist had attained. The notion of conclusion and decay is paramount in this image, the end of the day when the sun sets, the end of the year as the trees are stripped of leaves and the end of the woman's daily routine. However, as with most of Grimshaw's pictures of evening scenes, the mood is not pesimistic or melancholic. By flooding the scene with the diffused golden light, Grimshaw celebrates the beauty of the close of day.
William Roberts Symonds - Portrait of The Hon. Lady Violet Agar-Robartes
[Portrait of The Hon. Lady Violet Agar-Robartes (1888-1965) of Lanhydrock, Cornwall]
Price Realized £1,175
signed with initials 'W. R. S.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
17 x 12 in. (43.1 x 30.5 cm.)
Violet Agar-Robartes (1888-1965) was the youngest sister of the 7th Viscount Clifden and was from the 9th and last generation of the Robartes family to live at Lanhydrock. The house, which is near Bodmin in Cornwall, was given to the National Trust in 1953.
Walter Heath Williams - two paintings
[Figures on a beaten track, with a shepherd and flock beyond]
Price Realized £7,800
oil on canvas
24 x 36 in. (60.9 x 91.4 cm.)
[A shepherd on a wooded track, a cottage beyond]
Price Realized £1,920
oil on canvas
18 x 26 in. (45.6 x 66 cm.)
Thomas J. Banks - Figures by a beaten track, an abbey ruin beyond
Price Realized £720
signed with monogram (lower right) and signed and dated 'Thomas. J. Banks 1882' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
8¼ x 13¼ in. (20.9 x 33.7 cm.)
Harry Wallace - Children by a woodland stream
Price Realized £840
signed and dated 'Harry Wallace/1877' (lower right)
oil on canvas
20 x 30 in. (50.8 x 76.2 cm.)
Henry Charles Bryant - Cows and horses grazing in a pasture
Price Realized £2,280
oil on canvas
20 x 30 in. (50.8 x 76.2 cm.)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Ship Lost for More than 150 Years is Recovered in Canada
[This 1851 illustration shows the HMS Investigator on the north coast of Baring Island in the Arctic. Arctic archaeologists have found the ship that forged the final link in the Northwest Passage and was lost in the search for the Franklin expedition. The HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, is in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's Western Arctic]
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=39561
Thomas Edwin Mostyn - Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length, in a green and gold dress
Price Realized £39,950
signed 'Mostyn' (upper left)
oil on canvas
40 x 34 in. (101.6 x 86.3 cm.)
George Goodwin Kilburne - Admiring Demeter ...
[A Mother and Child admiring the Statue of Demeter in the British Museum]
signed 'G. G. Kilburne'
pencil and watercolour
6 x 9"
Shows the Masoleum room between 1869 and 1884. The room (now Room 5) contained Greek marbles excavated by Sir Charles Newton at Bodrum, the site of ancient Halicarnassus.
George Cole - Cattle watering on the Thames
Price Realized £4,800
oil on canvas
17¼ x 25 1/8 in. (43.8 x 63.8 cm.)
Henry John Boddington - A summer's evening on the Thames
signed and dated 'H.J. Boddington. 1858.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 1/8 x 50 in. (76.5 x 127 cm.)
Joseph Thors - Figure and cottage by a pond
Price Realized £504
signed 'J. THORS' (lower right)
oil on panel
9 1/8 x 11 5/8 in. (23.1 x 29.5 cm.)
Henry Dawson - A peaceful day on the river
Price Realized £2,400
signed 'Dawson' (lower left)
oil on canvas
25 1/8 x 30¼ in. (63.8 x 76.8 cm.)
Joseph Thors - Evening, after the storm, West Uxbridge
Price Realized £2,400
with partial artist's label and inscription 'Evening, W. Uxbridge, after the storm W. Uxbridge' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 60.9 cm.)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
America on Wheels - Early Automobiles
An educational film from the 1950's showing early automobiles.
John Frederick Tennant - Salvaging the wreck
1796-1872.
Price Realized £6,000
signed and dated 'J Tennant/1853' (lower right)
oil on canvas
32 x 60 in. (81.3 x 152.4 cm.)
John Linnell - Gathering in the harvest
signed and dated 'J Linnell/1859' (lower left)
oil on canvas
28 x 39 in. (71.2 x 99.2 cm.)
Walter Bonner Gash - Portrait of a lady, bust-length, in a blue dress and feather boa
signed 'W.B. Gash 97' (upper left)
oil on canvas
22 x 17½ in. (55.9 x 44.4 cm.)
1869-1928.
http://www.walterbonnergash.com/
Edward Charles Williams - A village in the New Forest
signed with initials and dated 'ECWms/48' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
32 x 50 in. (81.2 x 127 cm.)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Alfred Augustus Glendening Snr, - An extensive river landscape with mountains beyond
oil on canvas
30 x 50 in. / 76.2 x 127 cm.
1891 -
Signed
Alfred Augustus Glendening Jr - The Dove
1895
oil on canvas
h: 43 x w: 31 in / h: 109.2 x w: 78.7 cm
Alfred Augustus Glendening Jnr. was born into an artistic family in 1861. Glendening was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and from 1880 was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His work now hangs in the Tate Gallery, London and in Aberdeen, Scotland. Glendening was an important Victorian artist who was able to capture light with great sensitivity. This painting is a perfect example of the highly detailed and romantic art that was popular in the Nineteenth Century.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Arthur J Elsley / Frederick Morgan - Ruff Play
Oil on canvas
26 x 36 inches
Signed by both Arthur J. Elsley & Fred Morgan
This is the only known collaboration between Arthur John Elsley and Fred Morgan signed by both artists.
Painted c.1889
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Bessie Davidson - La Robe Bleue
signed l.l.: Bessie Davidson
oil on canvas
92.5 by 65.5cm., 36½ by 25¾in.
ESTIMATE 9,000 - 12,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 20,000 GBP
Arthur Wardle - A Family Affair
signed l.r.: ARTHUR/ WARDLE
oil on canvas
51 by 41cm., 20 by 16in.
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 30,000 GBP
John Atkinson Grimshaw - Mansion House, London
signed l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw
oil on paper over a photographic base, laid on canvas
31 by 46cm., 12 by 18in.
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 23,750 GBP
John Atkinson Grimshaw - Roundhay Lake, Leeds
signed and dated l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw S.93; further signed, dated and inscribed on the reverse: Roundhay Lake/ Atkinson
Grimshaw S.93
oil on canvas
46 by 69cm., 18 by 27in.
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 121,250 GBP
John Atkinson Grimshaw painted several views of Roundhay Park from 1872 onwards until his death. His first three paintings of the park were commissioned by a committee of the House of Lords in connection with the Leeds Corporation Improvement Bill. The Corporation of Leeds intended to purchase Roundhay Estate following the death of Nicholson in 1871. Nicholson had no heir and the Corporation wished to buy the estate and make it a public park.
The purchase was successful and the park was opened to the public on 19 September 1872 by Prince Arthur.
However, the Mayor of Leeds John Barron was severely criticised for investing in what was generally regarded to be a 'white elephant' as the park was far out of Leeds and not easily accessible. It was the remote mystery of Roundhay that attracted Grimshaw who found in the wilderness of the park and the haunting beauty of its ruins and the silent solitude of the lake, the same enigmatic beauty he had painted in the lonely suburban streets and faded glories of manor gardens of Leeds, where ivy and dry leaves veil the golden landscape. In the present picture Grimshaw captured the evening glory of the shadows and sunset reflected in the waters of the thirty-three acre lake which had been built in just two years by soldiers that had returned from the Napoleonic wars and thus named Waterloo Lake. A lone and graceful swan creates scale within the otherwise unoccupied landscape.
Grimshaw loved the natural beauty of Roundhay but also recognised the ancient serenity of its woods, which in the thirteenth century had been the hunting grounds of the DeLacy family of Pontefract Castle. Roundhay remains a public park and is now well regarded by the Leeds residents and the wildlife that is now protected within its boundaries. Flocks of mute swans still nest on Waterloo Lake as they did in Grimshaw's day and the scene has changed very little since Grimshaw painted it and since DeLacy rode through the trees hunting wild boar.
John Atkinson Grimshaw - Golden Gleam
signed l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw +; inscribed and signed on the reverse: A Golden Gleam/ Atkinson Grimshaw/ +
oil on canvas
31 by 46cm., 12 by 18in.
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 109,250 GBP
Throughout the 1880s John Atkinson Grimshaw painted a series of views of suburban streets in autumn, predominantly painted in Yorkshire. In these images of roads and lanes between the high stone walls hiding mansions and villas from prying eyes, the scenes are deserted except for a solitary female figure making her way down a leaf and puddle strewn road. These paintings are perhaps the most evocative and typical of the artist, who was unrivalled in his depiction of the evening gloaming. The busy traffic of horses and carts bringing goods into the city from the outlying farms have left their impressions in the damp soil of the road, but most have long since
departed and the gateways have been closed to the outside world. There is an emotive sense of stillness and calm which pervades these golden images of evening light. Grimshaw was arguably the most evocative painter of moonlit and evening scenes in which calmness and silence pervades these moody images. The subject is not a
specific locality, but the effects of light upon a generic suburban street. Unlike the pictures of the great cities of Britain and the fishing villages that Grimshaw painted, there are no landmarks in Golden Gleam to place the exact location and the picture is therefore a more abstract summary of glorious light and autumnal splendour. The sense of mystery evoked by the appearance of the lonely road is further enhanced by the anonymity of the scene with the exact location withheld. The Victorians had a huge appetite for such romantic intrigue and it was a prevalent theme in the novels, plays and poetry of the age. Grimshaw himself was inspired by the writings of Wordsworth, Browning, Shelley and in particular Tennyson. Alexander Robertson sums up thus; 'A few lines from Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden' seem to demonstrate this most succinctly:
'The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes,
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall,
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill
November dawns and dewy glooming downs,
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves'
In Golden Gleam the notion of conclusion and decay is paramount, the end of the day when the sun sets, the end of the year as the trees are stripped of leaves and the end of the daily routine of the maid making her solitary way home carrying a basket. By flooding the scene with diffused golden light, Grimshaw celebrates the beauty of the close of day.