Unknown

Portrait of a Lady Holding a Fan - French 19thC oil painting indistinctly signed

1879

This stunning Old Master 17th century oil portrait painting is attributed to Francesco Fieravino, an artist famous in his day for still lifes and carpets. This painting which dates t...

This stunning British American Impressionist portrait oil on canvas painting is by Sir James Jebusa Shannon circa 1905. The painting is of the artist and his wife Florence and daught...

This superb British realist portrait oil painting is by noted artist Gerald Leslie Brockhurst. It was painted in 1952 when Brockhurst was in his sixties and living in America since 1939. The sitter is Hope G. Simpson. The painting is a half length portrait of a striking blonde woman in a blue buttoned up Chinese style garment. It is a strong portrait with bold colours and confident brushwork and an excellent example of his work. Signed and dated 1952 lower right. Provenance. Hiram Hoelzer New York label verso. Portraits Inc. East Street new York. Label verso. Condition. Oil on canvas, 30 inches by 25 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in its original wooded frame, 37 inches by 32 inches and in good condition. Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978) was a British painter and etcher. Brockhurst was born in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham on 31 October 1890, son of a coal merchant called Arthur Brockhurst, he soon showed precocious drawing skills and entered the Birmingham School of Art at the age of twelve. A pupil at the Royal Academy Schools in 1907, he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship in 1913, enabling him to visit both France and Italy. This led to a closer study of such 15th-century artists as Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, whose work had an abiding influence on him. In 1914 he married for the first time to a Frenchwoman, Anaïs Folin, whom he used as the model for most of his early etchings of young womanhood (especially from 1920 till 1934). From 1915 to 1919 Brockhurst and his wife Anaïs lived in Ireland, where they were friendly with the artist Augustus John and his circle. Though he tried his hand at etching in 1914, it was not until 1920 that he began his career as an etcher in earnest, eventually achieving success as both a printmaker and society portraitist. Brockhurst held his first important exhibition in 1919, in London, and after it was well received returned to live there. In 1921 he was one of the early members of the newly-formed Society of Graphic Art and exhibited with them. Throughout the 1930s he continued an increasingly successful career as a portrait artist, with notable sitters including the film stars Merle Oberon and Marlene Dietrich, as well as the Duchess of Windsor, whose husband commissioned her portrait. In 1937 Brockhurst was elected to the Royal Academy and was able to command a price of 1,000 guineas for a portrait. In the same year however details of his relationship with his young model Kathleen Woodward, whom he had renamed Dorette, were made public after she gave an interview to the Sunday Express. Brockhurst's marriage had previously come under strain in 1922 when his wife discovered his adultery with her sister, Marguerite, and now broke down acrimoniously, with Brockhurst counter-suing on the grounds of his wife's adultery. In August 1939 Brockhurst and Dorette moved to the United States, and he was eventually divorced from his first wife in 1940. He married Kathleen in 1947. In New York City, Brockhurst became both famous and rich with a series of society portraits but his printmaking output diminished, especially his etchings. He produced a few lithographs at the end of his career (around 1945). In 1951, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. In 1958, he appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel...

This stunning much exhibited 1920's Scottish portrait oil painting is by noted Glasgow Girl artist Norah Nielson Gray. Painted circa 1923, the model for the painting was Rita McIlraith but the artist did not want to use her name in the title and it was called 'Exotic.' Norah Neilson Gray...

This stunning Old Master oil painting is attributed to a follower of Anthony Van Dyck. Painted in the 18th century it is a superb large religious art work of the crucifixion of Chris...

This lovely Art Deco portrait oil painting is by noted British prolific society portrait artist Leon Sprinck. Painted in 1924 it is a half length portrait of a beautiful blonde woman, stood smiling at the artist/viewer, her head tilted to one side. We don't know the sitter's name or her relationship to the artist but her pose suggests a degree of familiarity and warmth between them. She is wearing a sleeveless black dress with beautiful Art Deco motifs, a long string of pearls...

Julius EXNER (Copenhagen, 1825 - Copenhagen, 1910) Model stripping Oil on canvas H. 122 cm; L. 74 cm Signed and dated 1842 lower right Exhibition: most likely Charlottenborg Salon of 1845, under number 110, titled Modelfigur, awarded with a silver medal Provenance: Emilio Fernando Bolt (c.1860 - 1944), acquired from the artist around 1900, then by descent Our painting was produced as part of the summer sessions organized between 1839 and 1850 by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853), the master of Danish painting of the first half of the 19th century, in his private studio-apartment on the ground floor. floor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. The master brought together a few students there between June and September, rented one or two models for the season, which were painted from different angles, the artists (including Eckersberg himself) sitting side by side. Eckersberg used to paint a fairly small version, the pupils of the larger formats. The work fits more generally into the legendary context of the research and reforms carried out by Eckersberg concerning the studies of nudes and in particular of female nudes, to make this exercise a genre of painting in its own right. Following his two-year stint in Jacques-Louis David's studio in Paris in 1811, Eckersberg had been made aware of work on the nude and in particular on live models, in natural light, while in Denmark the drawings were then only made from casts of antique models or other mannequins. In 1822, when he had been a professor there since 1818, it was he who had the Royal Academy of Copenhagen authorize the study of nudes, no longer in the evening by candlelight, but in natural light; from 1833, it was still he who allowed students to work on nude female models, even if the official authorization of the Academy did not take place until 1839. It was this same year that he instituted his summer sessions, on a private basis, to orient his painting and that of his students towards a new conception of the representation of models: even if the nude remains the real theme, it does not however, this is more than just an academic exercise. The subject is placed in a contemporary interior, with a rather sophisticated decor, and occupied with an intimate activity (it is this type of intimate vein that we will find later in Degas or Cassatt for example); thus in our painting, the young woman is supposed to take off her clothes to wash. The objective is that the viewer forgets that the master and his students are painting a model during a posing session, and that he instead has the impression of being alone with the model, but invisible, almost like a voyeur in spite of himself. Moreover, in these paintings, the model never looks towards the spectator, inducing a psychological distance with him, whereas model and artist are actually physically very close. On the other hand, it is not a question of idealized nudes either, even if Eckersberg, proof of his debt to the antique, chooses fairly classic models and poses. The sensuality is real and very present, with dreamy, even innocent, and timeless expressions (the models do not seem to have a defined age), suave and slow attitudes and movements, and especially with clothes that hide or reveal skillfully parts of the female body: upper buttocks, pronounced hips... Made by an artist under 20, our sensual painting is probably one of the most beautiful and spectacular produced by the students of Eckersberg during these summer sessions. With a perfect balance between the firmness of an ancient statue (it recalls the Venus de Milo) and the softness of the feminine forms, highlighted by a harmonious palette, it captures the attention with many details: the almost photographic folds white clothing...

Jacques STELLA (Lyon, 1596 – Paris, 1657) Judith and Holofernes Oil on slate H. 23.5 cm; L. 24 cm Son of François Stellaert, a painter of Flemish origin who settled in Rome in 1576, then in Lyon, Jacques Stella was born in this city in 1596. Around 1619, he left for Florence where he worked for Cosimo II de Medici. He probably already met Nicolas Poussin and Jacques Callot there. Stella left Florence for Rome in 1622 or 1623, where he befriended Poussin, who arrived in 1624. Stella became famous in the world of Italian amateurs for his small paintings painted on precious supports: marble, agate, lapis, slate, as well as by his engravings and drawings. In 1634, having received offers from the King of Spain, he left Rome in the suite of Marshal de Créqui, French ambassador. He passed through Venice, stopped in Lyon in 1635, then in Paris. Retained by Richelieu who took him into his service, he settled in the capital of the kingdom. Covered with favors, he benefited from accommodation in the Louvre and a considerable pension. He later received the Collar of the Order of Saint-Michel, a rare honor for an artist...

Nicolas de LARGILLIERRE (Paris 1656 – 1746) Portrait of a woman, presumed to be Marie-Anne de Bourbon, Princess of Conti (1666-1739) Oil on oval canvas H. 80 cm; L. 61 cm (107 x 91 c...

"As the incarnate of dawn shines in the morning, such a blushed Diane's complexion exposed without veils to the eyes of a mortal" Les Métamorphoses by Ovide Less tragic is our destin...

Jacques STELLA (Lyon, 1596 - Paris, 1657) The Annunciation Oil on alabaster (single old break perfectly restored) H. 25 cm; W. 30 cm Son of François Stellaert, a painter of Flemish ...

French school circa 1840 Sketch of a dandy portrait Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard H. 21 cm; L. 20.5 cm