William Lionel Wyllie, R.A., R.I., R.E. Art

This late 19th-century oil painting by Scottish artist John White (1851-1933) depicts a boy fishing in a stream with the sea beyond. With his line taut, he leans back and looks opti...

An enchanting Southern landscape by the mother of the Charleston Renaissance. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, and educated under the tutelage of Thomas Anshutz at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, O'Neill Verner was a teacher, a mother, an artist, an ardent preservationist, and a skilled autodidact. Having previously focused on painting, in the early 1920s she found herself deeply moved by printmaking as a media, and especially so by the simple, peaceful themes and tableaus she discovered in Japanese art. She embarked on a effort to teach herself Japanese printmaking techniques, and in the process, produced the charming images of every day life in Charleston and its environs that earned her recognition as a cultural icon in her day, and in more modern times, as the mother of the Charleston Renaissance, which flourished well into the 1930s. In 1923 she opened a studio in Charleston where she focused on documenting the local color and the architecture and landscape that distinguishes Charleston as one of the South's most beautiful cities, all the while applying the gentle and poetic thematic sensibilities of Japanese printmaking. O'Neill Verner soon found herself in high demand when municipalities and institutions throughout the country sought commissions from her to document the beauty of their grounds and historic buildings. She worked as far north as the campuses of Harvard and Princeton, and extensively across the South, including in Savannah, Georgia, where through sweeping commissions she was able to marry her love of southern preservation and art. O'Neill Verner was a lifelong learner, and continued a path of edification that led her to study etching at the Central School of Art in London, to travel extensively through Europe, and to visit Japan in 1937, where she studied sumi (brush and ink) painting. She was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club, and the Southern States Art League. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of leading museums across the American south, and in major national institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. O'Neil Verner...

A charming rural scene painted in the style of Thomas Girtin with good strong colours. Circle of Thomas Girtin Sheep in a hilly pasture with a farmhouse Signed with initials and dated "AP (18)05' Watercolour, with attractive washline mount 6¾ x 9¾ inches with frame 14 x 17 inches including frame Thomas Girtin was born in London in 1775, the same year as J.M.W. Turner, and died in 1802, at the age of twenty-seven. The art of watercolour was transformed during Girtin's brief life. This was especially marked in landscape watercolours, which grew in scale and ambition. Led by Girtin and Turner, watercolourists abandoned careful stained drawings for a more dramatic style of painting that captured moods and a range of light and weather effects. Not everyone welcomed the rapid technical changes, especially as revolution and war threatened the established political order. For a brief period, however, watercolour painting was the epitome of modern art, and the landscapes of Girtin and Turner were welcomed as a national triumph. Girtin was apprenticed at the age of 14, in the year of the French Revolution, and by the age of 19 he was exhibiting at London's Royal Academy, and producing watercolour landscapes for private patrons. However, unlike Turner, Girtin remained something of an outsider to the art establishment: he did not study at the Academy's schools, and was rumoured to have radical, or even revolutionary sympathies. He also tried to break away from the traditional reliance on the patronage of the wealthy, partly by trying to sell his work on the open market, and partly through two larger projects aimed at a mass audience: a group of twenty printed Views of Paris and an enormous 360 degree panorama of London...

A delightful composition by this master watercolourist. William Payne (1760-1830) Figures chating by a cottage and stream, a rivermouth beyond Watercolour and touches of charcoal 5½...

A delightful composition by this master watercolourist. William Payne (1760-1830) Figures and cattle by a river Watercolour 7¾ inches, circular, unframed 15 x 14½ inches with the fr...

Large, highly detailed charcoal and acrylic landscape featuring a lush country forest against a sunlit sky "Some Twilight Land" by Sue Bryan charcoal, acrylic, and pastel on canvas, ...

This charming oil painting by British artist Edwin Masters (act. 1862-1877) depicts a busy village scene with several thatched cottages and figures. It’s abundant with life and each ...

Large, charcoal and acrylic landscape painting on canvas featuring a detailed countryside wooded field and light blue sky "Dreamland" by Sue Bryan acrylic and charcoal on canvas 34 x...

"Veduta del Sepolcro della Famiglia Plauzia per la Strada Che Conduce da Roma a Tivoli vicino a Ponte Lugano" from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities), one of the most famous works by Piranesi. "Antichita" illustrates the tombs along the Appian Way...

This late 19th-century watercolour by British artist Martha Fowler (b.1843) depicts a view on the Cornish coast. Fisherfolk carry nets amid a haze of dense fog. Meandering between pools of water left by the retreating...

This rugged early 20th-century gouache by British artist John Falconar Slater (1857-1937) depicts rapid whitewater amid an upland scenery in Northumberland, England. As the fierce f...

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, 10 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches (270 x 190 mm), full margins. Signed, inscribed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Some small, scattered light spots...