James Montgomery Flagg

“She struggled until she heard him telling her to be quiet.”

1933

Original illustration for the article “Slumming Among the Four Hundred” by Alfred Henry Lewis, for The Saturday Evening Post, published November 2, 1907. The article offers a satiri...

A romance novel cover for Scandalous Bride by Diana Hamilton, published by Harlequin for their Scandals series, 1997. Signed Lower Right Man and woman lying in bed...

This painting was published as the cover for An Unlikely Attraction by Melinda McRae, Signet Regency Romance, Signet Books, 1991. Illustration of a young couple. Signed lower r...

This illustration was published as the paperback cover of, Build Me a Dream (Silhouette Special Edition series) by Pat Warren, Silhouette Books, 1989 A young man holding a young w...

This very modern drawing presents a view of Ariccia, a small town 25 kilometres south-east of Rome. The Palazzo Chigi (in which the film-maker Luchino Visconti would film a large part of The Leopard a century later) and the adjoining church are seen from the bottom of the ravine that surrounds the town. This drawing is a moving testimony to the attraction of the city for artists of the Romantic period, who established in Ariccia a vivid artists' colony. 1. Achille Bénouville...

Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819-1898) Portrait of a man in profile signed on the lower right Pencil and heightenings of white gouache on paper 19.5 x 13 cm Framed : 29 x 22.7 cm Jules-Eugène Lenepveu is of course particularly well known for his large-scale paintings, such as the one on the ceiling of the Paris Opera, but his work here is much more delicate and intimate. We recognise the artist's mastery of talent, but the play of textures, with its highlights of white that enliven and illuminate the model's face, is also very subtle. There's a particularly charming sense of life and impression of light. Jules-Eugène Lenepveu was born in Angers on 12 December 1819, on the site of the street that now bears his name, into a family of small shopkeepers. The painter showed a deep attachment to his family throughout his life through his correspondence and the many portraits of his relatives. He entered the drawing school in Angers in 1833, where he was a pupil of Jean-Michel Mercier. There he rubbed shoulders with the sculptor Ferdinand Taluet. He arrived in Paris in 1837 and entered the Beaux-Arts, where he was officially admitted to François-Édouard Picot's studio in 1838. He exhibited his work "L'Idylle" at the Salon of 1843 and, that same year, left for his first visit to Italy. He was awarded the Second Prix de Rome in 1843 for "Cincinnatus recevant les députés du Sénat" (Cincinnatus receiving the deputies of the Senate), then the First Prize in 1847 for "La Mort de Vitellius" (The Death of Vitellius). A resident at the Villa Médicis from 1848, he was surrounded by painters Alexandre Cabanel, Léon Benouville, Gustave Boulanger, Félix Barrias...

The subject illustrated here is one of the moments that mark the centuries-long history of Genoa's glorious Maritime Republic, when the ashes of St. John the Baptist, one of the city...

Richard Westall, R.A. (1765-1836) Venus signed and dated ‘R. Westall 1794’ (lower right) pencil and watercolour, with white heightening image 11 ⅞ x 15 ¼ in. (30.2 x 38.7 cm.) frame 22 ⅛ x 26 in. (56.3 x 66.1 cm.) Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Venus (1794) was produced during a highly creative and defining period of Richard Westall’s career and artistic development, when from 1790-95 the ambitious young artist was sharing a house at 57 Greek Street, Soho, with his friend Sir Thomas Lawrence, the future President of the Royal Academy. Whilst lodging together, Lawrence became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1791, Westall the following year, and both were elected full-members in 1794 – the year Lawrence was appointed Painter-in-Ordinary to His Majesty King George III. Westall was to become Queen Victoria’s first Drawing Master, before her ascension to the throne. It was in this very year, 1794 - as the two young artists became Royal Academicians - that the present watercolour was executed, and it is exciting to speculate that Lawrence would have examined and given his thoughts on the work. Highly comparable to The Wallace Collection’s Nymph and cupids (c.1793, cat. P757), acquired by Francis Seymour-Conway (1777-1842), 3rd Marquess of Hertford, (who hung it in his bedroom), the mid-1790s saw Westall exhibiting and returning to similar subject-matter on a number of occasions. Two works with titles that could be applied to the present picture were exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1794 (no. 341 Nymph and Cupids) and 1795 (no. 620, A Wood–nymph and Cupids). However, a print after the watercolour, engraved by F. Screen, entitles the piece Venus. Westall is regarded as a great virtuoso watercolourist, and Venus is evidence of the young artist’s mastery of the medium. Indeed, it is unusual to find a watercolour of comparable age so well preserved, and retaining such vibrancy - the superb condition providing an insight into his exceptional brushwork and use of colour. Venus languishes luxuriously on her woodland bed, the trunk of a tree resembling a curtain, while three winged putti play beside her, seeming to gesture to someone in the woods. Cupid draws back his bow and aims an arrow of love, perhaps about to pierce the heart of a hunting nobleman, or unsuspecting woodcutter. The striking contrast between the almost luminescent nymph, with the deep, rich, luxuriant forest, gives the glade an alluring sense of mystery – perhaps an allusion to the mysteries of the heart, a pre-occupation with Romanticism, central to the emerging thought of the time. Westall can be classified as one of the great Romantic artists, and even painted Lord Byron’s portrait...