19th Century European School

Study of the Apollo Belvedere, Graphite Sketch, 19th Century

Graphite on laid paper, signed verso and paper watermarks and atelier stamp Image size: 23 ¾ x 16 ¾ inches (60.25 x 43.5 cm) Gilt Whistler frame Leon Bellemont Born on August 20, 1866, in the family home on rue du Grand-Cloître, Léon Bellemont studied from 1875 to 1883 at the Diderot college, where he was an excellent student. At the same time, he joined the municipal drawing school, where his exceptional predispositions were very quickly noted. In 1884, at the age of 18, Léon Bellemont left Langres to join Paris and its National School of Decorative Arts, then the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There, he followed the teaching of Léon Bonnat, a renowned portraitist, and obtained his first rewards and several prizes. It was in 1892, however, that his artistic career took off, with his first participation in the Salon des artistes français, where he exhibited until 1956. A landscape and impressionist painter, particularly impressing marine worlds, Léon Bellemont stayed more and more regularly in Brittany at the beginning of the 20th century, where he painted numerous paintings. His notoriety grew, as did the profits from his sales, and the State itself ended up placing a few orders with him. His work “The Breton Faith” was, for example, acquired by the museum in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Subsequently, always in search of inspiration, Léon Bellemont travelled extensively. He was in Bruges from 1907 to 1909, then traveled across France for several years participating in exhibitions. During the First World War, he settled in Algiers where he remained for several years. He then returned to Paris, worked extensively there and achieved great fame. A socialite, he frequented salons and regularly received his friends Jules Adler...

Evelyn de Morgan Study of a Standing Female Nude 1855 - 1917 Black chalk and pastel on grey paper Image size: 12 ½ x 19 inches (48.2 x 31.7 cm) Pre-Raphaelite style frame Provenance J.S. Mass & Co., Ltd., London, J.X. Reynolds & Co., Ltd. Once she had graduated from the Slade School of Art, Evelyn continued to draw every day for the rest of her life. Her drawings are enlightening not only for their skill and subject matter, but also for their ability to teach us her working process. From loose compositional sketches, Evelyn swiftly progressed to detailed life studies for the figures in her paintings. Choosing to draw mainly on a grey wove paper in pencil and pastel, Evelyn produced hundreds of figure studies. Her rigorously-examined double studies of clothed and nude figures are particularly fascinating and underline the artist’s obsession with the human form and her desire for accuracy. A deep understanding of anatomy is obvious in this drawing and looking at the work you feel as though you can reach out and feel the muscle and bone under the skin, that you could feel the pulse of life through the soft skin. Evelyn de Morgan Born into a landowning family, from an early age Evelyn De Morgan, née Pickering, demonstrated a precocious artistic talent and a passionate desire to pursue a career as an artist, writing in her diary on her seventeenth birthday ‘Art is eternal, life is short… I have not a moment to lose’ (Evelyn De Morgan’s Diary, 30 August 1872, De Morgan Foundation Archive). Her maternal uncle, the artist John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope encouraged her talents and accompanied her on her first formative journeys to Italy where she discovered the Renaissance masters, particularly Botticelli. Overcoming initial parental opposition, Evelyn enrolled at the newly formed Slade School in 1873, one of the first women to do so. The Slade revolutionised women’s artistic education by allowing female students to study the nude from life alongside their male counterparts. Whilst at the Slade she began to submit work under her middle name Evelyn, rather than her Christian name Mary, as its gender ambiguity offered a chance for her work to be judged on its own merit. One of her tutors, Edward Poynter...

Study for Statue is an original drawing in pencil on paper, realized by the architect and engineer Giovanni Fontana (1540-1614). The state of preservation of the artwork is good exc...

Life study drawing original atelier drawing by the French artist, Jeanne Nachat (1898-1984) Nachat attended the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts in Pa...