This auction is live!
You need to be registered and approved to bid at this auction.
Watch the auctionThis auction is closed!
It is no longer possible to bid at this auction.
You are registered for this auction
You are now approved to bid at this auction.
Your auction registration is now pending
You have successfully registered for this auction, pending approval to bid. Please check your email for further information.
Your auction registration has been declined
Please contact the auctioneer for more information.
Live
Venue address
Dreweatts
Donnington Priory
Newbury, Berkshire
RG14 2JE
United Kingdom
The Collection of The Hon. Patrick and Lady Amabel Lindsay
This is a live online auction with auctioneer. For details on registration, bidding, viewing & condition reports, click “Important information” link.
Sale Announcement | Find out more
Foreword by Laura, Ludovic, James and Valentine Lindsay | Find out more
Viewing in London (highlights): 16-17 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5LU
13 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
14 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
15 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
18 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
19 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
20 May: 10:00-19:00 BST
21 May: 10:00-16:00 BST
Viewing in Newbury (full sale): see below
Auction dates
Jun 02, 2026 10:30 AM BST
Viewing dates
May 29, 2026 10:00 AM - 04:00 PM BST
May 30, 2026 10:00 AM - 03:00 PM BST
May 31, 2026 10:00 AM - 03:00 PM BST
Jun 01, 2026 10:00 AM - 04:00 PM BST
|
Auction currency
|
GBP |
|
Buyer's premium
|
27 % (exc. Sales tax) |
|
Accepted cards for registration
|
|
|
Accepted cards for payment
|
|
|
Other payment methods
|
Featured lots
We found 48 items matching your search
Refine results
Filter by
Estimate
Category
Brand
Item Type
Sale Section
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 GBP
λ RENATO GUTTUSO (ITALIAN 1912-1987)
LAVANDAIA CON UN CESTA IN TESTA AD ANACAPRI
Oil on canvas
Signed (lower right)
50 x 38cm (19½ x 14¾in.)
Painted in 1954.
Provenance:
Private Collection, Rome
Ernest Brown & Phillips Ltd. at The Leicester Galleries, London
Exhibited:
London, Ernest Brown and Phillips Ltd at the Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of the Recent Works of Renato Guttuso , March 1955, no. 5
London, Artists International Association, R.B.A. Galleries, 1958
Literature:
Ernest Brown and Phillips at the Leicester Galleries, Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Recent Works of Renato Guttuso , March 1955, no. 5 (illus.)
E. Crispolti, Catalogo ragionato generale dei dipinti di Renato Guttuso , Milan 1984, vol. 2, p. 10, no. 54/15 (illus.)
In 1931, Renato Guttuso exhibited two paintings at the Quadriennale Nazionale d'Arte Italiana in Rome, which set him on the path to becoming an artist. He abandoned his university studies and his thoughts of pursuing a career as a lawyer and turned to painting. He became Italy's leading exponent of Social Realism and he frequently used his art as a vehicle to highlight injustice and abuses of power. From the 1940s, he also began to design stage sets, creating scenery for productions throughout Italy. This remained a passion of his throughout his life.
Guttuso's life was something of a paradox; he joined the Communist Party in 1940, in a response to fascism, and remained a member until his death, serving as a communist MP in the 1970s. Yet his long-term partner was a countess.
In 1948, he exhibited a group of works at the Venice Biennale, which brought his work to the attention of the international press. One of the critics at the Biennale, Douglas Cooper was instrumental in bringing Guttuso's work to London. He organised his first exhibition in London at the Hanover Gallery in 1950. Five years later, Leicester Galleries held an enormously successful solo exhibition, presented by John Berger. His work sparked lively debate in the English press. The critic for the Spectator Magazine noted that Guttuso was in the almost unique position of having his work hung both in the Museum' of Modern Art in New York and in the Stalin Museum in Moscow ... a rip-roaring propagandist who represents the extrovert, heroic side of Western 'disintegration' as seen through Marxist eyes. Peasants on the march, slaughtered workers and the blood- baths of patriots are his meat . ( The Spectator , op. cit).
Both lots 13 and 68 were included in the 1955 exhibition and were regarded by Berger as worthy of being illustrated in the accompanying catalogue
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ NICKY BARTHORP (BRITISH 21ST CENTURY)
UNTITLED
Acrylic on canvas
Signed and dated 2010 (verso)
40 x 40cm (15½ x 15½in.)
Unframed
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ NICKY BARTHORP (BRITISH 21ST CENTURY)
ONENESS
Acrylic on canvas
Signed with initials (lower right)
55 x 45.5cm (21½ x 17¾in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ HECTOR MCDONNELL (BRITISH B. 1947)
WOMAN IN THE SNOW, TSURPHU
Oil on canvas
30.5 x 41cm (12 x 16in.)
Painted in 1987.
Provenance:
Fischer Fine Art Ltd., London
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ JAAP DE VRIES (DUTCH 1959-2014)
BIRCH (NO. 6)
Acrylic on aluminium
Signed, titled, inscribed and dated 2007 (verso)
80 x 60cm (31¼ x 23½in.)
Painted in 2007.
Provenance:
20 Hoxton Square, London
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ FFIONA LEWIS (BRITISH B.1964)
BLUE - LIGHT, ULTRAMARINE, CERULEAN, PRUSSIAN
Oil and pencil on relief board
Signed with initials and dated '97 (lower left); further signed, dated 1997, titled and inscribed (to backboard verso)
29.5 x 81.5cm (11½ x 32in.)
Provenance:
Gordon Hepworth Fine Art, Exeter
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
60,000 - 100,000 GBP
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH 1833-1898) AND STUDIO STUDY OF NIMUE FOR 'THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN' black chalk and oil on a prepared canvas, unlined 76.4 x 59.2cm (30 x 23¼in.) Provenance: Anonymous sale [Lady Clay]; Christie's, London, 3 February 1976, lot 161 Possibly The Fine Art Society, London
The present oil sketch is a study for the figure of Nimuë in Burne-Jones's celebrated painting The Beguiling of Merlin (1874, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, fig. 1), one of a group of eight works Burne-Jones exhibited at the first Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in 1877. The picture was commissioned by Burne-Jones's great patron F.R Leyland (1831-1892) for the famous interior he created at 49 Prince's Gate, London.
The Grosvenor Gallery was established as an alternative to the Royal Academy by Sir Coutts Lindsay (1824-1915) and set itself apart from mainstream exhibiting societies. It was more a private organisation defined in terms of distinction and the artists it promoted embodied this rarified identity. The pictures were hung (in contrast to the Royal Academy) in an aesthetic hang which embraced the ideal of 'art for art's sake'. Burne-Jones's exhibits, displayed on scarlet damask, shone out and marked him out as a leader of the new aesthetic sensibility. For Burne-Jones his debut at the inaugural Grosvenor Gallery exhibition marked a triumphal return to public exhibition after a break of seven years when he resigned from the Old Water Colour Society in 1870 after a member of the public complained about the nudity in Phyllis and Demophoon (Birmingham Museums Trust). The Beguiling of Merlin is based on the late Medieval French text Le Roman de Merlin . Merlin and Nimuë was one of Burne-Jones' favourite Arthurian themes. He discovered a copy of the 1817 edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855, and painted an Arthurian subject in a mural for the old Debating Hall of the Oxford Union in 1857. He also executed a watercolour of the same subject in 1861 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London). In the story Merlin was so in love with Nimuë that at her request he taught her all his magic skills, which she wrote down. The picture depicts the moment when snake crowned Nimuë has lulled the magician to his doom, enchanting Merlin with his own sorcery by binding him into a hawthorn tree. Merlin is shown paralysed and helpless and the subject matter symbolising entrapment in which a male protagonist falls victim to a hidden, threatening female power.
Find out more Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
70,000 - 100,000 GBP
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT. A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH 1833-1898) SPES AND DAPHNE Pencil on two joined sheets of paper laid on linen, wrapped around a wooden board 93.5 x 123.2cm (36¾ x 48½in.) In the original frame Provenance: The artist, and by descent to his son, Sir Philip Burne-Jones, Bt. Sale of the remaining works by the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bt .; Christie's, London, 5 June 1919, probably lot 20 (25 gns to Gooden & Fox). William Hesketh Lever, first Viscount Leverhulme, who gave it to the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, probably in 1922. Trustees of the Lady Lever Art Gallery ; Christie's, London, 6 June 1958, lot 12. The present drawing is one of Burne Jones's most highly finished drawings and is one of the group of large scale, semi-independent works that relate to the needlework frieze designed to hang round the upper walls of the dining-room at Rounton Grange, Northallerton, a house commissioned from the architect Philip Webb (1831-1915) by the Novocastrian ironmaster and metallurgist Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell (1816-1904) in 1872.
The commission in 1874 to decorate the interior of the house was one of the most important to date for Morris and Company and included wallpapers, ceilings, furniture and carpets. Burne-Jones and William Morris took the opportunity afforded by the commission to illustrate the medieval tale Romaunt of the Rose on a needlework frieze which was to be was worked by Sir Lowthian's wife, Margaret, and his daughters who were experienced needlewomen. Burne Jones designed the figures and William Morris the background of stylised briar roses. The frieze was completed in 1882 and survives in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.
The subject of the frieze was the thirteen-century Romance of the Rose , written by Guillaume de Lorris. It was among the most popular secular texts of the late Middle Ages, though considered controversial due to its sensuous language and imagery and often condemned by contemporary moralists. The Romaunt is a meditation on the nature and vicissitudes of courtly love cast in allegorical form and describes how a young poet dreams of an encounter with the god of Love (one of Burne Jones's favourite emblematic personifications). The poet enters a secret garden where after trials and tribulations he discovers a wonderful rose, symbolising perfect love. The tapestry covered three sections of the north, south and west walls of the dining room, in the centre, over a massive stone fireplace, Burne-Jones depicted the Pilgrim gazing on the miseries of the world - Hate, Felony, Villainy, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sorrow, Age, Time, Hypocrisy and Poverty, represented by free-standing bronze sculptures set in niches along the exterior wall of the Garden of Idleness, while on either side is the poet's dream of Love leading the Pilgrim to safety and away from danger, and introducing him to the Garden of Idleness, where he finds ineffable beauty in the heart of the rose. The Garden itself is populated by beneficent presences Spes and Daphne is one of the four pairs of figures which personify the Virtues, the others are Love and Beauty , Largesse and Richesse and Courtesie and Fraunchise which aid the Pilgrim in his search for his beloved. Burne-Jones worked these pairs of Virtues, of which the present work is one, and Love Leading the Pilgrim (all private collections) up to exquisite highly finished drawings.
The romantic, complex and scholarly story was translated from the French into middle English by one of Burne-Jones's favourite poets, Chaucer. Chaucer was one of the cornerstones of Burne-Jones's and Morris's medievalism and they first read him as undergraduates at Oxford. The story would have greatly appealed to Burne-Jones's sensibilities and was also the subject of one of his favourite illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum. G.P. Boyce records a visit to the Museum on 14 April 1860 when he, his sister Joanna, and her husband, the painter H.T. Wells, were shown this exquisite book by Burne-Jones, who evidently knew it well [1]. The lavishly illuminated manuscript was written in Bruges at the end of the 15 th Century and illustrated with miniatures that conjured up a picturesque and highly-coloured world in keeping with the poem's celebration of courtly love.
The finished embroidery worked from this design is illustrated in Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer , exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1989, pp. 180-181; two comparative highly finished drawings for the project of Love and Beauty and Largesse and Richesses are illustrated, loc.cit ., nos. 73, 75. Several of the designs were re-cycled as easel paintings or tapestries for Morris & Co. Notably Love leading the Pilgrim (Tate Britain), his last major picture, exhibited at the New Gallery in 1896-7 and The Pilgrim at the Garden of Idleness , 1884 (Dallas Museum of Art), illustrated op.cit . pp. 182, 184, nos. 74, 78.
The group of full-size pencil drawings, which includes the present drawing, Spes and Daphne , were finished to an exceptional level and reveal Burne-Jones's love of the medium and the irresistible opportunity they afforded him to execute such works. Dating from the early 1870s they clearly reflect the influence on his style of his visits to Italy in 1871 and 1873 where he studied Italian Renaissance paintings. The drawings are in his most 'Florentine' manner, notably the lively Ghirlandaio-style movement of the figures and the billowing Botticellian drapery with great emphasis on linear invention.
How highly the artist rated this group of drawings is evidenced by the fact that Margaret Bell and her daughters were given photographic enlargements from which to work their embroidery while Burne-Jones retained the originals. Tellingly he gave Love Leading the Pilgrim , 1876-77 (private collection) to Frances Horner, the daughter of his patron William Graham, with whom he was platonically in love for years.
In summary these exceptional drawings, including Spes and Daphne 'seem to have been taken to a degree of finish more out of pleasure than of necessity.'[2]
[1] V. Surtees, The Diaries of George Price Boyce, Norwich, 1980, pp. 29-30.
[2] Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer, exhibition catalogue, p. 180.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
70,000 - 100,000 GBP
λ IVON HITCHENS (BRITISH 1893-1979)
FLOWER COMPOSITION, VIOLET AND ORANGE
Oil on canvas
Signed (lower left), further signed, titled and inscribed (to artist's label on stretcher verso)
60.5 x 114cm (23¾ x 44¾in.)
Painted in 1958.
Provenance:
Ernest Brown & Phillips at The Leicester Galleries, London
Exhibited:
London, Ernest Brown and Phillips at the Leicester Galleries, Recent Paintings by Ivon Hitchens, May 1959, no. 8
London, Bradford and Birmingham, Arts Council: Ivon Hitchens: A Retrospective Exhibition , Tate Gallery, 11 July - 18 August 1963, Bradford City Art Gallery, 31 August - 22 September 1963, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery 28 September - 20 October 1963, no. 105
Literature:
Ernest Brown and Phillips at the Leicester Galleries, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Ivon Hitchens , May 1959, no. 8 (illus.)
Arts Council, Ivon Hitchens, a retrospective exhibition , Lund Humphries, 1963, no. 105 (illus)
The present work was first exhibited publicly in what was Hitchens' tenth one-man exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, in May 1959 and was the culmination of a twenty-year relationship between the artist and the gallery.
Hitchens found a freedom of expression and a relief in his flower paintings as a welcome contrast to the demands of landscape painting. In his best works they afforded the opportunity to combine harmonious colour with a balanced composition. When subtle-brush work coincides with a unified composition, these flower groups transcend the decorative and invite a deeper contemplation, not merely of paint but of flowers . ...[They] invigorate by their vitality and colour . (Peter Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens , André Deutsch, 1990, p. 119-20).
By 1958, when the present work was painted, the connexion between the jumping-off point of a painting-something seen and felt-and the painting itself had become for Hitchens ever more tenuous, be it a landscape or a flower piece. Now in his mid-sixties, he was moving towards an ever-greater freedom of form and colour, movement and gesture. There are paintings of this date and later in which flowers are distinctly recognizable. This is not one of them. Here colour-pattern, rhythm and variety of brush mark combine in a largely abstract design-a visual music of colour-shapes-sufficient in itself to engage the viewer's eye independently of anything it might represent.
The violet and orange of the picture's title, heightened by their surround of pure white, first capture the eye then lift it up to the arc of pale blue and green at the top of the canvas before letting it dive down the long streak of black to find the answering patches of blue and green at bottom right. Here it finds itself exploring a complex funnel of competing dark and light colour-patches. Escape isn't easy but it lies along the broad sweeps of paint leading leftwards and up to the comparative freedom and spaciousness offered by the orange and violet where it began. Of course, that is just one possible itinerary over the competing elements in this lively and light-hearted composition. Grave analysis is out of place: whether one reads it as a flower piece or a landscape or neither, the essential is that one should keep exploring.
Hitchens himself was happy enough with this forward-looking painting to wish to include it in his retrospective exhibition at the Tate in 1963 and it was he who wrote requesting its inclusion in the exhibition. No doubt he hoped it would startle and waylay those who had knowingly pigeon-holed him as a painter of landscapes.
We are grateful to Peter Khoroche for his assistance with cataloguing this work.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
λ AUGUSTUS JOHN O.M., R.A. (BRITISH 1878-1961)
DORELIA IN A LANDSCAPE
Oil and pencil on canvas
76 x 45.5cm (29¾ x 17¾in.)
Painted circa 1911
Provenance:
Sale, Christie's London, Drawings and Paintings from the Studio of the Late Augustus John, O.M, R.A., Part II , 21 June 1963, lot 123
Acquired from the above by David, 28th Earl of Crawford and 11th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975), Balcarres House, Fife
And thence by descent
The present unfinished painting demonstrates the artists' s occasional use of pencil under-drawing on his canvases before starting to work in oil. In 1911, Augustus rented a cottage in North Wales and Dorelia stayed with him for a while in the May. Although there is a further oil of Dorelia leaning against a tree, with a view of Chirk viaduct behind, wearing the same dress and gloves as in the present work. Augustus stayed at Chirk Castle in 1914 and whilst Dorelia did not stay with him then, they may have made a return visit to the area the same year.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
λ AUGUSTUS JOHN O.M., R.A. (BRITISH 1878-1961)
DORELIA WEARING A SHAWL
Pencil
Signed (lower right)
31 x 23cm (12 x 9in.)
Exhibited:
London, Hazlitt, Holland-Hibbert , Augustus John: Master Works from Private Collections , 29 September - 29 October 2004
Literature:
James Holland Hibbert and Rebecca John, Augustus John, Masterworks from Private Collections 1900-1920 with a special loan from the National Portrait Gallery , London, 2004, p.30 (illus).
Ida, Augustus John's first wife described Dorelia to her sister Ursula in 1905 as a very wonderful person - a child of nature - calm and beautiful and patient - no littleness - an animal if you will - but as wholesome as one - a lovely forest animal (James Holland-Hibbert and Rebecca John, Augustus John Master Works from Private Collections 1900-1920 , 2004, p. 28).
Dorelia (Dorothy) McNeill worked as a secretary in a solicitors, but her real interest lay in art and she attended night classes at Westminster School of Art. It was through this that she met Gwen John, at a party held by another artist in 1903. Augustus was shortly afterwards introduced to Dorelia by his sister and was instantly captivated by her. The combination of hypnotic beauty and serenity was powerful and enabled John to imagine and depict Dorelia in an almost endless variety of roles. Fellow artist and close friend, Sir William Rothenstein described how in the matchless Dorelia, in her dazzling beauty, now lyrical, now dramatic, John found constant inspiration . (Malcolm Easton, ed., Augustus John Portraits of the Artist's Family , University of Hull, 1970). Over a sixty-year period, but particularly in the years between 1903 and 1914, John sketched and painted Dorelia almost compulsively.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
λ CRAIGIE AITCHISON R.A. (BRITISH 1926-2009)
LANDSCAPE FROM INSIDE A CATHEDRAL
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 76.5cm (36 x 30in.)
Painted in 1957.
Provenance:
Beaux Arts Gallery, London, 1959
Private Collection, Anthony Fry (1927-2016)
Christie's, London, Modern British Art Day Sale , 20 November 2018, lot 177
Exhibited:
London, Beaux Arts Gallery, Craigie Aitchison , 5 - 31 January 1959, no. 4
London, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Milton Keynes and Bolton, Arts Council of Great Britain: Serpentine Gallery, December 1981 - January 1982, Nottingham, Midland Group, February - March 1982; Old Portsmouth, City Museum and Art Gallery, April - May 1982, Milton Keynes, Central Library Exhibition Gallery, May - June 1982, and Bolton, Museum and Art Gallery, July - August 1982, Craigie Aitchison Paintings 1953-1981 , no. 5
Literature:
Beaux Arts Gallery, Craigie Aitchison , 5 - 31 January 1959, no. 4
Arts Council of Great Britain, Craigie Aitchison Paintings 1953-1981 , no. 5 (illus.)
Andrew Gibbon Williams, The Art of Craigie Aitchison , Edinburgh, 1996, pp. 42, 169, pl. 10 (illus.)
Andrew Lambirth, Craigie Aitchison,Out of the Ordinary , R.A., 2003, p. 16 fig. 10 (illus.)
Cate Haste, Craigie Aitchison A Life in Colour , Farnham, 2014, pp. 52-53, 239, pl. 38 (illus.)
Mr Craigie Aitchison ... earns the label "romantic" by this ability to convey the mood felt in a certain place than the physical details of its appearance. His best paintings ... are so simplified that it would be tempting to compare them to abstract works, where it not that they are conceived entirely as attempts to represent a certain aspect of reality, and not as formal compositions . ( The Times , 1956 quoted in Andrew Gibbon Williams, The Art of Craigie Aitchison p. 51).
Craigie Aitchison was born in Edinburgh. His father was a prominent lawyer, judge and politician, who died suddenly when Aitchison was fifteen. Aitchison initially followed his father 's footsteps into law, but whilst in London studying for the Bar, he began to spend more time painting and studying art. In 1952, he enrolled at the Slade School of Art, initially as a part time student. In 1953, he won the Slade School prize for a still life and in February the following year, he participated in his first group exhibition: Six Young Contemporaries at Gimpel Fils Gallery, London.
Having been awarded the British Arts Council Italian Government Scholarship, in September 1955, Aitchison set off on a two month tour of Europe and Italy, in the company of friend and fellow student Myles Murphy. His time in Italy had a profound impact on Aitchison's art. He became fascinated by the work of the Early Renaissance artists, and particularly the stern geometry, muted tones and delicate palette of Piero della Francesco, as well as the simplification of form and composition inherent in the work of Giotto, where details are reduced to their essential elements. He found a fascination with the power of religious subjects and how their surroundings the candles and the darkness and the massive gold frames (Cate Haste, Craigie Aitchison A Life in colour , p. 47) added to the viewing experience. Equally profound an impact on the artist's work were the colours inherent in the landscape of Italy. The balance of greens and earthy colours of the area between Siena and Rome, introduced Aitchison into a new palette and encouraged him to abandon his previously bolder colour range. He discovered that raw umber and dark colours could be just as glamorous as bright one, just as exciting. ( loc. cit ).
On his return to Britain, he produced works imbued with the contemplative atmosphere of the ordered landscape of the Italian campagna... Of the works produced in the years immediately following his time in Italy, it was a captivating small picture [the present work] that most forcefully conveys the impact Italy had on Craigie. The composition is arranged with almost geometric precision, each element from cypress tree to crucifix finding its niche; but what really clinches the success of the picture is the precise tonal organisation. Greens, ochres and above all the pellucid pale blue, hang together in perfect balance. And the air of melancholy that emanates from the picture results, more from the absence of incident . (Andrew Gibbon Williams, op. cit , p. 41).
The present work was included in the artist's first solo exhibition held at Beaux Arts Gallery, in London, where it was seen by Aitchison's friend and fellow artist Anthony Fry, who later recalled that he couldn't stop thinking about it and although, he wasn't a great purchaser ... [and] didn't have much money. But [he] decided that definitely [he] was going to get it . ( ibid . p. 52). The artist was delighted, not only was it sold to a friend, but an artist purchasing it, validated it as a work of art; he apparently stated I can't be so bad after all if a painter has bought my picture . ( loc. cit .).
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
JOHN CAMPBELL MITCHELL (BRITISH 1865-1922)
NEAR KINTALLEN MILL, BENDERLOCH
Oil on canvas
Signed (lower right)
46 x 77cm (18 x 30¼in.)
Provenance:
Sotheby's, London, The Estate of Christian, Lady Hesketh, 7 March 2007, lot 319
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
λ MICHAEL AYRTON (BRITISH 1921-1975)
A HILL TOWN SEEN THROUGH VINES
Oil on board
Signed (upper right)
31 x 41.5cm (12 x 16¼in.)
Painted in December 1948.
Provenance:
Matthiesen Ltd., London
Christie's, London, English Pictures Drawings and Bronzes c.1840 - c.1960 , 26 April 1963, lot 124
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
λ RENATO GUTTUSO (ITALIAN 1912-1987)
TRASPORTO DELL'ERBA AD ANACAPRI
Oil on paper laid on canvas
Signed and dated '54 (lower right); titled, inscribed and dated 1954 (verso)
107.5 x 144cm (42¼ x 56½in.)
Provenance:
Leicester Galleries, London
Acquired from the above
Exhibited:
London, Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Works by Renato Guttuso , March 1955, no. 7
Literature:
London, Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Works by Renato Guttuso , March 1955, no. 7 (illus.)
J. Berger, Guttuso , Dresden 1957, no. 64
In Bildende Kunst, no. 12, Dresden 1957, p. 808 (illus.)
J. Berger, Guttuso , Mosca 1962, no. 64
M. De Micheli, Renato Guttuso , Sofia 1970, p. 26, fig. 10
E. Crispolti, Catalogo ragionato generale dei dipinti di Renato Guttuso , Milan 1984, vol. 2, p. 9, no. 54/12
When all his powers are fully engaged, he is capable not only of infusing the most complex composition with great internal energy, but of seeing it through to a degree of completion altogether unusual today . ( The Spectator , 18 March 1955, p.22).
For a discussion on the artist see lot 13.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
CIRCLE OF WALTER CRANE (BRITISH 1845-1915)
STUDY OF LILIES
bodycolour and ochre wash over pencil
32 x 20cm (12½ x 7¾in.)
Provenance:
Alice Hester Camilla (née Cotton), Lady Chetwode (1871-1946) and by descent to
Candida Lycett-Green, a gift to Lady Amabel Lindsay
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
DUTCH SCHOOL, LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY
STUDY OF A CARNATION
Oil on canvas, laid down on panel
15.9 x 11.5cm (6¼ x 4½in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
FLORENTINE SCHOOL (CIRCA 1370)
THE RISEN CHRIST
Egg tempera and gold on panel
19.5 x 15cm (7½ x 5¾in.)
23.1 x 19cm overall
Provenance:
David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, 11th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975), Balcarres House, Fife
And thence by descent
It has been suggested that the present work may be by an artist working in the Circle of Francesco di Bartolomeo Cristiani (1340-1398). The present work is unusual in that the artist has painted Christ with his right hand on his stomach , rather than the more conventional depictions of Christ with folded arms or arms outstretched.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 GBP
FREDERICK ETCHELLS (BRITISH 1886-1973)
CELLULAR COMPOSITION
Oil on board
Indistinctly inscribed (verso)
26.5 x 35cm (10¼ x 13¾in.)
Painted circa 1920.
Provenance:
The Artist
Given by the above to Geoffrey Alan Baker (1881-1959) in 1920
By family descent to Philip H Baker
Christie's, London, 7 November 1991, lot 21
Frederick Etchells was a painter and architect who studied at the Royal College of Art from about 1908-1911. He spent time in Paris, where he met many of the artists challenging the established art world, including Picasso, Braque and Modigliani. His own work was included in Roger Fry's Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. The following year, he joined the Omega Workshops, however, disillusioned with Fry and realising that his interests lay in other directions he left not long after. He and Percy Wyndham Lewis, who had also left the Workshops, and shared similar interests in Futurism and Cubism, exhibited with other artists who shared their Vorticist ideas in the 'Cubist Room' section of the Camden Town Group and Others exhibition in Brighton in December 1913-January 1914. Later in 1914, Etchells joined Lewis at the Rebel Art Centre and contributed illustrations to the first issue of Blast magazine.
After the war, Etchells gave up painting to pursue his ambition to become an architect and in 1930 built one of the first Modern Movement building's, The Crawford Advertising Agency in Holborn.
Lots 121 and 122 demonstrate the artist's interest in the pleasing interplay of interlocking abstract forms and refined balanced palette.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 GBP
λ FREDERICK ETCHELLS (BRITISH 1886-1973)
MECHANICAL COMPOSITION
Oil on board
35 x 26.5cm (13¾ x 10¼in.)
Provenance:
The Artist
Given by the above to Geoffrey Alan Baker (1881-1959) in 1920
By family descent to Philip H Baker
Christie's, London, 7 November 1991, lot 21A
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
THOMAS BEACH (BRITISH 1738-1806)
PORTRAIT OF PETER BECKFORD (1740-1811), BUST-LENGTH, IN A GREEN COAT
Oil on canvas, oval
Signed, inscribed and dated 1772 (lower left)
62.5 x 49cm (24½ x 19¼in.)
The contemporary inscription identifies the sitter as Peter Beckford Esquire of Stapleton, Son in law to the 1st Lord Rivers and nephew to Thomas Howard, Earl of Effingham.
Peter Beckford was the son of Julines Beckford, of Stapleton. Dorset, and grandson of Peter Beckford (c.1643-1710), governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica and therefore nephew to William Beckford (1709-1770) one of the best known political figures in Georgian era London. Peter married the Hon. Louisa Pitt (1754-1791) daughter of George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1721-1803) of Stratfield Saye.on 22 March 1773 and by a special patent, granted in 1802, his son William Horace succeeded to the barony, and became the 3rd Lord Rivers. Peter Beckford sat in parliament, as representative of Morpeth, in 1768.
In 1787, just before the outbreak of the French revolution, he travelled in Italy, and wrote an entertaining account of his journey, which was published some years later under the title of Familiar Letters from Italy to a Friend in England, 1805. Here he described visits to Voltaire, Rousseau, and other celebrities. In Turin, he writes, he had met Sterne in 1765, and had 'passed hours with that eccentric genius that might have been more profitably employed, but never more agreeably.' He died on 18 Feb. 1811, and was buried in Stapleton church.
A portrait of Richard Howard, 4th Earl of Effingham (1748-1816) also by Thomas Beach, similarly inscribed but undated was advertised in Apollo , February 1970, p. lxiv.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
134
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH WERNER (SWISS 1637- 1710)
PORTRAIT OF A LADY TRADITIONALLY IDENTIFIED AS MADAME DE MONTESPAN (1640-1707) IN HUNTING COSTUME IN HUNTING COSTUME IN THE GARDENS OF THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
Oil on canvas
91 x 97.5cm (35¾ x 38¼in.)
Possibly in the original rococo frame
Provenance:
The Late Mrs Robert Tritton; Christie's, London, 8 July 1983, lot 84 as by P. Mignard
Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan was the most celebrated mistress of King Louis XIV of France. She was a woman of outstanding beauty and much feared by her fellow courtiers on account of the famous 'Mortemart' wit for which her family was renowned, and held great sway over the royal court. She first met the King in the early 1660s, but it seems that it was not until around 1666-1667 that Louis XIV fell under her spell. In 1674, she definitively ousted Mademoiselle de la Vallière to become the king's official mistress. Louis set her up in an apartment adjoining his own, complete with private entrance. They had seven children together, entrusting their education to the widow of poet Paul Scarron, the future Madame de Maintenon and her successor as the king's mistress. Six of these children were legitimated by the king from 1673 onwards. She played a prominent role in life at the palace. and was a passionate lover of the arts, she enjoyed the king's protection until she was superseded by Maintenon in around 1680. The Marquise, caught up in the vast Affair of the Poisons, a national scandal with prominent courtiers implicated in a number of poisonings committed between 1679 and 1682 and neglected by the king, finally retired from the court in 1691 and moved to the convent of Saint-Joseph in Paris. She died in 1707.
Werner was born in Berne, Switzerland and trained first in Basel and then under Matthaus Merian in Frankfurt, circa 1654 he went to Rome where he established himself as a fashionable painter of miniature portraits and allegorical works. Werner was summoned to Paris by Louis XIV where he painted portraits of both the monarch himself and of various notables in his entourage and often depicted his sitters as gods or goddesses, such as Louis XIV as Apollo in his Chariot (Musée du Château, Versailles (inv. no. 6927, 1); he also worked on the decorations of the Palace of Versailles. In 1667, he left France but continued to move in exalted circles. In Augsburg he worked for the Bavarian Elector in Vienna, painting a portrait of Leopold I, and was then invited to Berlin by the Prussian King Frederik. He earned a reputation as a miniatures painter at the court of the Saxon King in Dresden. In Berlin, he was appointed Director of the newly established Prussian Academy of Arts.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH WERNER (SWISS 1637- 1710)
PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN TRADITIONALLY IDENTIFIED AS LOUIS DE ROHAN, DUKE OF ROHAN (1635-1674) AS MASTER OF THE HORSE IN HUNTING COSTUME IN THE GARDENS OF THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
Oil on canvas
91 x 94cm (35¾ x 37in.)
Possibly in the original rococo frame
Provenance:
The Late Mrs Robert Tritton; Christie's, London, 8 July 1983, lot 85 as by P. Mignard
Werner was born in Berne, Switzerland and trained first in Basel and then under Matthaus Merian in Frankfurt, circa 1654 he went to Rome where he established himself as a fashionable painter of miniature portraits and allegorical works. Werner was summoned to Paris by Louis XIV where he painted portraits of both the monarch himself and of various notables in his entourage and often depicted his sitters as gods or goddesses, such as Louis XIV as Apollo in his Chariot (Musée du Château, Versailles (inv. no. 6927, 1); he also worked on the decorations of the Palace of Versailles. In 1667, he left France but continued to move in exalted circles. In Augsburg he worked for the Bavarian Elector in Vienna, painting a portrait of Leopold I, and was then invited to Berlin by the Prussian King Frederik. He earned a reputation as a miniatures painter at the court of the Saxon King in Dresden. In Berlin, he was appointed Director of the newly established Prussian Academy of Arts.
The identification of the sitter as Duke of Rohan, combined with the possible date of when Werner was working at Versailles suggests that the sitter is most likely to be Louis de Rohan (1635-1674), known as the Chevalier de Rohan, who was a prominent French nobleman, courtier, and military officer who served as the Grand Huntsman of France (Grand Veneur de France) under King Louis XIV. He was beheaded in the Bastille after being convicted of high treason for his involvement in the Conspiracy of Latréaumon, 1674.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
WILLIAM BLAKE (BRITISH 1757-1827)
EUROPE A PROPHECY: TITLE PAGE (RECTO); JERUSALEM: PLATE 24 TRIAL PROOF (VERSO)
Relief etching printed in blue grey, finished in pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour
with inscriptions (lower left and lower right, on the mount)
23.8 x 17.3cm (9¼ x 6¾in.)
Provenance:
John Linnell (1792-1882)
His sale; Christie's, London, 15 March 1918, lot 176 (22 gns to Tregaskis)
Mrs (Lady) D.Y. Cameron by 1921,
Bequeathed by her husband, Sir D.Y. Cameron (1865-1945) to
David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, 11th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975), Balcarres House, Fife
And thence by descent
Exhibited:
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Blake Centenary Exhibition , 1927, no. 82.
Japan, Tokyo, Institute of Art Research, English Water-Colour Paintings , October 1929, illustrated in catalogue pls. 22a and b
Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, William Blake Loan Exhibition , 1969, in no. 44
London, Tate Gallery, William Blake , 1978, no. 69, illustrated.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, William Blake: Apprentice and Master , 4 December 2014-1 March 2015, no. 134
Literature:
W. M. Rossetti, 'Annotated Catalogue of Blake's Pictures and Drawings,' in A. Gilchrist, Life of William Blake , London 1863, II, p. 202, no. 14; also enlarged edition, London, 1880, vol. II, p. 208, no.
G. Keynes, A Bibliography of William Blake , New York, 1921, p. 141, illustrated pl. 17
G. Keynes and E. Wolf 2nd, William Blake's Illuminated Books, A Census, New York, 1953,, p. 77
D.V. Erdman, The Illuminated Blake , New York, 1974, illustrated p. 397
G.E. Bentley Jr, Blake Books , Oxford, 1977, pp. 149, 162
D. Bindman, Blake as an Artist , London, 1977, p. 80, illustrated pl. 65
M.D. Paley William Blake , Oxford, 1978, p. 31
M. Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake , New Haven and London, 1981, p. 149, no. 272
William Blake developed a unique printing technique of 'Illuminated printing' as he called it, which allowed him to combine words and pictures on the page. By writing and drawing on copper plates with acid-repelling ink, Blake created a relief image. The plate was then dipped in acid to create what was essentially the opposite of a traditional engraving. The technique allowed the verses to appear to be handwritten, in a style that seemed more like it had been drawn and painted than printed.
In 1790, Blake moved to Lambeth, where he produced a trilogy of illuminated books called the Continental Prophecies that addressed the revolutionary spirit of his age as embodied by the American and French revolutions. Europe, published in 1794, was the second of these books along with America and The Song of Los . Rather than examining the New World, this Continental Prophecy looked eastward to cultures subjected to the strictures of authority as embodied by the legalistic and despotic figure of Urizen, who, despite his godlike appearance, represents tyranny. The frontispiece of Europe is one of Blake's best-known images, also known as The Ancient of Days, it depicts Urizen dividing the Depths with a compass.
The present sheet, dated by Butlin, loc.cit. to circa 1815-1820 is the title page of Europe and is printed in blue-grey, with watercolour colouring the serpent and the foreground and round the initial letter 'E' of 'Europe'. The outlines, much of the word 'Europe' and the first three letters of 'PROPHECY' have been gone over in black ink. The remainder of the title has gone as the words are devoured in flame. In this reworking of the printed edition, Blake has added a figure, absent from the engraving, struggling with the serpent, by partly utilising the strokes at the end of 'PROPHECY' for the face which was completed in pencil and pen.[1]
On the reverse of the present work is a trial proof of plate 24 from Jerusalem printed in brown and black and coloured in watercolour, Butlin, loc.cit. suggests that both sides of the paper were first used for trial proofs from their respective books, before being reworked by hand.
The rampant serpent, which dominates the title page, serves to announce the advent of Orc, who embodies a spirit of revolution, upon Europe. Bindman, loc.cit., notes that in the present work, a youthful figure, identified tentatively as Los, appears to be trying to hold the serpent down as it rises up. Los in his earthly and fallen state is the embodiment of human creativity and inspiration. Bindman continues that, the motif as printed with the rampant snake alone ... opens the book with a confrontation between the opposing forces of Urizen and Orc, the Old Order is threatened by the New . The present work expounds Blake's thinking of the precarious co-existence of Urizen and Orc. Paley notes that this reworking of the title page shows Blake's 'increasing disquietude about the principle of revolutionary energy, represented by Orc, all suggesting the loss of the human aspect of revolution to the will-to-power and at the end of the poem Los 'called all his sons to the strife of blood .' The present work was not intended as a trial revision for a new printing, but as a graphic comment, a private statement by Blake on the failure of the phrophecy of an English revolution, see Erdman, loc.cit .
The present drawing was formerly in the collection of the artist Sir D.Y. Cameron, R.A. (1865-1945) and was also in the collection of John Linnell (1792-1882), an important patron to Blake in the last years of his life, commissioning a set of engravings illustrating the Book of Job , and buying Blake's watercolours executed for Milton's Paradise Regained . Linnell also introduced him to Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) and a new generation of English artists, who became devotees of Blake known as 'The Ancients'. The present work has not been seen on the auction market since Linnell's sale in 1918.
[1] For other reworked title pages of Europe , see Butlin, op.cit ., nos. 273, 274, 274A
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
EDWARD CALVERT (BRITISH 1799-1883)
THE PLOUGHMAN
Wood engraving on wove paper, a posthumous printing of the final state probably a trial impression prior to the edition published by Carfax and Co, Ltd, 1904
8.3 x 12.7cm (3¼ x 5in.); together with two facsimiles after William Blakes's illustrations to Dante's Inferno : The Circle of the Lustful; and The Circle of Thieves (3)
Calvert's early visionary work was greatly inspired by that of William Blake (1757-1827) and he was a member of 'The Ancients', devotees of Blake who gathered around Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) at Shoreham in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Amongst Calvert's finest works are his small wood engravings which date from 1827-31, but were only seen by friends until published by his son in 1893.
Condition Report:
slightly stained and foxed, laid at the corners
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
1,500 - 2,000 GBP
MARTIN SCHONGAUER (GERMAN 1450-1491)
THE RESURRECTION, FROM THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Engraving, circa 1480, but a later impression showing much wear in the plate, trimmed on the platemark
16.6 x 11.8cm (6½ x 4½in.)
Provenance:
David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, 11th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975), Balcarres House, Fife
And thence by descent
Literature:
Adam von Bartsch, Le Peintre Graveur , VI, no. 20
Max Lehrs, History and Critical Catalogue of German, Netherlandish, and French Copper Engravings in the 15th Century , 1925, Vol. V, no. 30
Hollstein German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700 , 2004, Vol. LIX, no. 30 Alan Shestack, The Complete Engravings of Martin Schongauer , New York: Dover, 1969, no. 35
Schongauer was a highly influential Alsatian engraver and painter, recognized as the premier Northern Renaissance printmaker before Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). He revolutionized engraving with exceptional technical detail, introduced complex tonal ranges, and three-dimensional depth.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
ITALIAN SCHOOL, POSSIBLE BOLOGNESE (LATE 13TH CENTURY) ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT Historiated large initial 'M' depicting The Annunciation, cut from a large manuscript choir book or antiphonal, figures on a blue background with scrolling white penwork, highlights in gilt, verso comprising three fragmentary lines of Latin text with music on two 4-line red staves Red, blue, yellow and gilt on vellum 14.2 x 13.2cm (5½ x 5in.) Provenance: David Lindsay (1900-1975), 28th Earl of Crawford, 11th of Balcarres, Balcarres House, Fife And thence by descent
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
ITALIAN SCHOOL, 16TH CENTURY VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF SAN MICHELE IN BOSCO, BOLOGNA AND A VIEW OF BOLOGNA SEEN FROM OUTSIDE THE CITY WALLS Pen and brown ink, unidentified watermark with inscription 'Veduto di Passarotti/da Aog Carracci' (on the reverse) 25 x 17.5cm (9¾ x 6¾in.) The drawing is almost set out as a guide to some of the key buildings in Bologna. At the top of the sheet is a view of the church of San Michele in Bosco located on one of the Colli Bolognese. The old church was renovated by the Olivetans at the beginning of the 16 th Century and the façade designed by the Ferrarese architects Bigio Rossetti (circa 1447-1516) and the marble entrance by Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481-1537).
The lower drawing is of the ramparts of Bologna, with other key buildings of the city behind, including the Garisendi and Asinelli towers. The present work is a rare depiction of the city of Bologna before the 18 th Century and a firm attribution has eluded us, however previous suggestions have included the Bolognese artist Bartolomeo Passarotti (1529-1592) and an attribution to Giovanni Battista Naldini (1537-1591) has also been suggested.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 GBP
ALFRED DE DREUX (1810-1860)
TWO LADIES ON HORSEBACK WITH DOGS IN A WOOD
Oil on panel
36 x 30.5cm (14 x 12in.)
Provenance:
Dame Ann Parker Bowles ; Christie's, London, 10 February 1978, lot 74
Exhibited:
Schweitzer Gallery, New York.
Literature:
The Antique Collector , London, 1993, vol. 64, no. 3, p. 101.
M.-C. Renauld, Alfred de Dreux: Le cheval, passion d'un dandy parisien , 1997, pp. 108, 163.
M.-C. Renauld, l'univers d'Alfred de Dreux 1810-1860 , Arles, 2008, p. 10, no. 23.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
HENRY MOORE, R.A. (BRITISH 1831-1895)
SKETCH OF A MAN ON A GREY HORSE
Oil on canvas board
24 x 17cm (9¼ x 6½in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
173
EDMUND MORRISON WIMPERIS (BRITISH 1835-1900)
AN EXTENSIVE LANDSCAPE AT DUSK WITH CATTLE WATERING
Oil on board
12.5 x 35cm (4¾ x 13¾in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ AUGUSTUS JOHN O.M., R.A. (BRITISH 1878-1961) THE BATHERS Lithograph, 1921 Signed in pencil 29.5 x 37.5cm (11½ x 14¾in.) Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
FRENCH SCHOOL (18TH CENTURY) STUDIES OF CHILDREN IN AN ACADEMY Red and black chalk, watermark 30.5 x 46cm (12 x 18in.) Provenance: Dr Scharf, from whom acquired 1955 as by Lépicié Baron Paul Hatvany; Christie's, London, 24 June 1980, lot 55 Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, France in the Eighteenth Century , 1968, no. 433 as 'Attributed to Lépicié' Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
SIR GEORGE CLAUSEN (BRITISH 1852-1944)
DUTCH GIRL BY THE ZUYDER ZEE
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1876 (lower right)
46.5 x 38cm (18¼ x 14¾in.)
Provenance:
Private Collection, W. Palmer
Christie's, London , Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture , 4 March 1983, lot 21
Clausen's overwhelming belief was that naturalism was the truest form of painting. He travelled widely through Europe, studying the work of earlier artists, as well as that of his contemporaries. His wide-ranging experiences helped to develop his style of painting over the course of his career. His early style, favoured a striking, realistic manner, as is demonstrated in the present work, but over time this evolved into a more atmospheric, light-filled, impressionistic style.
Clausen was fundamental to the formation of the NEAC, believing that there was a need for a large exhibition venue, which would allow the opportunity for artists to experiment and exhibit works, free from the prejudices that he felt were inherent in the Royal Academy. Despite seeing a need for a more open and liberal venue, Clausen remained an advocate for the Royal Academy, albeit as a reformed institution. He lectured at the school of painting from the mid-1890s and held the position of professor of Paintings between 1903 and 1906. His lectures were so well regarded that they were published as soon as he had given them. Twenty years later he was appointed temporary Director and Master of the Painting School (1926-27).
Initially employed in the drawing office of a firm of Chelsea decorators, Clausen was encouraged to abandon this avenue by the artist Edwin Long, who had employed the firm to decorate his home. Long encouraged the young artist, employing him part time, urging him to study at the South Kensington Schools and to travel. Between 1875-6, Clausen went to Holland and Belgium, where he briefly attended the Antwerp Academy. He was influenced by the art of the Hague School and also began to work en plein air .
The present painting was the result of Clausen's time spent sketching along the Dutch coast and on the, then, Island of Marken in the Zuyder Zee during his time in Holland. There are several sketches and studies of the fishing girls that he saw on the beaches, as well as more highly finished paintings such as the present work. The first work he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876 was High Mass at a Fishing Village on the Zuyder Zee , which led one critic to mistakenly describe Clausen as a very clever Dutch painter .
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ DOUGLAS STANNUS GRAY (BRITISH 1890-1959)
THE ARTIST'S GARDEN
Oil on canvas
33 x 46cm (12 x 18in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
JOHN HENRY LORIMER (1856-1936)
FRUIT AND FLOWERS
Oil on canvas
Signed (lower left)
48.5 x 32.5cm (19 x 12¾in.)
Provenance:
The Fine Art Society, London & Edinburgh
Exhibited:
St. Andrews, Crawford Centre for the Arts, The Lorimers: A Family of the Arts in Fife , 9 February - 14 March 1983, no. 113
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
ERIC RAVILIOUS (BRITISH 1903-1942)
CHILD'S HANDKERCHIEF
Colour print, from an edition of 500
44 x 44cm (17¼ x 17¼in.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ GERALD LESLIE BROCKHURST (BRITISH 1890-1978) ADOLESCENCE (FLETCHER 75) Etching, 1932 An unsigned proof aside from the edition of 90 Plate: 36.5 x 26.5cm (14¼ x 10¼in.) Sheet: 50 x 37.5cm (19 3/4 x 14 3/4in.) Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ ATTRIBUTED TO DEREK HILL (BRITISH 1916-2000)
LANDSCAPE WITH CYPRESS TREES
Oil on canvas
61 x 31.5cm (24 x 12¼in.)
Derek Hill was a close friend of the Lindsay family and painted Patrick's portrait which remains with the family, as well as his father David, 28th Earl of Crawford and 11th Earl of Balcarres, which is now in the National Galleries of Scotland. Derek was a notable portrait painter, in addition to his landscapes and was commissioned to paint the portrait of H.R.H. Prince of Wales for Trinity College, Cambridge. Consequently, they became close painting companions.
... we often used to paint together in different parts of the world. He was always a priceless companion; a man of endlessly amusing, if naughty, stories about everybody who was anybody...Derek had a brilliant "eye" for a painting, he taught me a great deal about composition; about the "Golden Square"; about the relationship between foreground and background and, above all about the joys of using the other end of the brush to achieve certain effects. (Foreword, by H.M. King Charles III, when H.R.H. Prince of Wales, Christie's South Kensington, The Irish Sale, Including Works from the Studio of Derek Hill , 17 th May 2001, p. 9).
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
AFTER JOHANN ELIAS RIDINGER (1698-1767) A SET OF TWELVE PRINTS OF THE RIDING SCHOOL 58.5 x 35.5cm (23 x 13¾in.) (12) Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
THOMAS MILLIE DOW (BRITISH 1848-1919)
LILIES
Oil on canvas
Signed with initials and numbered 18 (upper right)
60.5 x 41cm (23¾ x 16in.)
Provenance:
The Fine Arts Society Ltd., London & Edinburgh
Exhibited:
Edinburgh, The Fine Arts Society Ltd, Edinburgh Festival Exhibition, Art in Scotland 1800-1920 , September 1980, no. 12/14
Literature:
Norman Garstin, 'The Work of T Millie Dow', The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art , vol. 10, 1897, p. 149 (illus.)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
THOMAS MILLIE DOW (BRITISH 1848-1919)
FLOWER PIECE - IRIS AND BLOSSOM
Oil on canvas
Signed with initials (lower left)
54 x 31cm (21¼ x 12in.)
Provenance:
Private Collection, John Nairn, Forth Park, Kirkcaldy
The Fine Arts Society Ltd., London
Acquired from the above 7 November 1979
Exhibited:
Kirkcaldy, Kirkcaldy Art Gallery, Inaugural Loan Exhibition , 1925 (as 'Flower Piece)
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ CAROLYN SERGEANT (BRITISH 1937-2018)
WILLOWS, DOCK AND BRAMBLE
Oil on board
Signed with initials and dated 2002 (lower left)
86 x 65.5cm (33¾ x 25¾in.)
Provenance:
The artist's studio
The Maas Gallery, London (acquired from the above)
Exhibited:
London, The Maas Gallery, Carolyn Sergeant, Botanical Paintings , 12-20 December 2016, no. 12
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ VIRGINIA POWELL (BRITISH B. 1939) LOOKING DOWN THE LOCK, ARDKINGLAS Etching and aquatint, 2 plates on one sheet Signed in pencil (lower right) and numbered 5/25 (2nd edition) (lower left) Plate size: 9.5 x 10cm (3½ x 3¾in.) Provenance: Michael Parkin Gallery, London Purchased from the above, February 1987 Exhibited: London, Michael Parkin Gallery, February 1987, no. 81 Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
λ VIRGINIA POWELL (BRITISH B. 1939) DAFFODILS Screenprint in colours Signed in pencil and numbered 6/12 38 x 54.5cm (14¾ x 21¼in.)
Together with four other prints by the same artist. (5) Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 GBP
PABLO PICASSO (SPANISH 1881-1973) LA COLOMBE (BLOCH 583, MOURLOT 141) Lithograph, 1949 Signed in pencil and numbered 8/50 54 x 69.5cm (21¼ x 27¼in.) Provenance: David Lindsay, 28 th Earl of Crawford, 11 th Earl of Balcarres (1900-1975), Balcarres House, Fife And thence by descent Exhibited: London, Hanover Gallery Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
Quantity
1
Max bid
GBP
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
SIR OSWALD BIRLEY (BRITISH 1880-1952)
STANDING FEMALE NUDE
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1903 (lower left)
175 x 80cm (68¾ x 31¼in.)
Unframed
Provenance:
Charleston Manor, Alfriston, Sussex, The Property of Lady Birley, vol. 1, The Remaining Contents of Sir Oswald Birley's Studio, together with Pictures and Sculpture by Other Artist's and the Library of Books , Christie's, London, 13 October 1980, lot 129
Exhibited:
Paris Salon, 121 e Exposition, 1903, no. 166 (as Etude de nu ).
Birley became one of the leading society portrait painters of his generation and was a favourite with the Royal Family, depicting three generations of the monarchy: George V and Queen Mary, Geoge VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. He began painting whilst studying the Old Masters in Dresden and Florence and enrolled at the Académie Julien in Paris between 1901 and 1904, where he studied under Marcel Baschet. Whilst in Paris he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon, including this work, which was exhibited in 1903, whilst he was still studying at the Académie. It highlights the influence of French art on the young artist and demonstrates the artist's extraordinary facility with paint. The painting was awarded a Mention Honourable at the Salon.
Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Featured lot
Provisionally sold
Leading
Won
Outbid
Lost
Declined
Reserve not met
Leading
AFTER EDWIN DALTON SMITH NINE HAND COLOURED ENGRAVINGS OF FLOWERS, PUBLISHED 1831 20 x 12cm (7¾ x 4½in.); and slightly smaller; together with coloured lithograph of auricula by J. Andrews and five other hand-coloured engravings of flowers, similarly framed; and two coloured engravings of a Magnolia and a Guava plant (16) Condition Report:
Condition Report Disclaimer
Please review and confirm your bid
Current bid:
Opening bid:
Your max bid:
Max bid:
Quantity:
Bidding ends:
Your bid is off increment
Choose one of the quick bid options below:
Your bid is below the current minimum bid
To place a bid select the minimum amount below:
Bidding has ended on this item
We are always adding new lots, use search to find similar items.
You are the current highest bidder!
To be sure to win, come back before the lot closes or increase your maximum bid.
You have been outbid!
For a chance of winning, increase your maximum bid.
You have been outbid!
Another bidder has already bid this amount. For a chance of winning, increase your maximum bid.
You have won!
Congratulations!
You are the winning bidder on this lot.
You have lost!
Unfortunately you have missed out on this lot.
Unable to place your bid
Please refresh your page to see current lot status.
We're very sorry, but we were unable to process the Buy it now.
Please contact customer services for more help.
Your bid has been declined
Your bid has been declined by the auctioneer, please contact customer services for more information.
Your bid is pending approval with the auctioneer
Please check your email account for more details.
You cannot Buy it now until you are approved to bid.
Please contact the auctioneer
Confirming your bid is a legally binding obligation to purchase and pay for the lot should your bid be successful.
Please review and confirm your bid
Current bid:
Opening bid:
Your max bid:
Max bid:
Buy it now price:
As your Max bid is at least equal to the Buy it now price, you can immediately purchase the lot.
New bid:
Quantity:
Bidding ends:
Your bid is off increment
Choose one of the quick bid options below:
Your bid is below the current minimum bid
To place a bid select the minimum amount below:
Bidding has ended on this item
We are always adding new lots, use search to find similar items.
You are the current highest bidder!
To be sure to win, come back before the lot closes or increase your maximum bid.
You have been outbid!
For a chance of winning, increase your maximum bid.
You have been outbid!
Another bidder has already bid this amount. For a chance of winning, increase your maximum bid.
You have won!
Congratulations!
You are the winning bidder on this lot.
You have lost!
Unfortunately you have missed out on this lot.
Unable to place your bid
Please refresh your page to see current lot status.
We're very sorry, but we were unable to process the Buy it now.
Please contact customer services for more help.
Your bid has been declined
Your bid has been declined by the auctioneer, please contact customer services for more information.
Your bid is pending approval with the auctioneer
Please check your email account for more details.
You cannot Buy it now until you are approved to bid.
Please contact the auctioneer
Confirming your bid is a legally binding obligation to purchase and pay for the lot should your bid be successful.