18th Century and Earlier Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) ‘Ambassadeur de Siam’ and ‘La Sultana Reine’ Both titled lower centre, the drawing of the ambassador inscribed with colours intended for the prints, e...

Italian School Around 1700 Beheading scene in front of an enthroned king, probably a martyr scene Black pencil 21.5 x 28 cm 29.5 x 39 cm Provenance: Fryszman collection, sale on 01...

Double-sided sketch for the "Sala delle Cariatidi" of the Royal Palace in Milan. The vibrant and intense brown ink sketch of these two female figures, executed by the Parma plastici...

Jan van der Heyden (1637 Gorinchem - 1712 Amsterdam), attributed. Old Master Drawing, Westerkerk Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, 17th century, Dutch Westerkerk and Keizersgracht in Amsterdam Backside: later drawn backside with village church of the 18th century Chalk and pen on paper 23,5 x 18,5 cm Preliminary drawing for a painting from the creative period c. 1667 - 1670. This painting has been published a few years ago by Peter C. Sutton in the catalogue raisonné of the artist. Van der Heyden was initially a pupil of a glass painter, but later turned exclusively to architectural painting and went to Amsterdam, where he painted views of churches, castles, palaces, public squares, streets, canals, etc., most of which are richly decorated with staffage. In addition, van der Heyden was also active as an inventor, for example, he developed a street lighting system for Amsterdam by means of oil street lamps, which was in operation from 1669 to 1840. After a stay in London, he painted the London fire of 1666, which he either witnessed himself or had seen the consequences of. Certainly influenced by this, he did much to further the technical and organisational development of the fire brigade from 1669 onwards. His greatest invention was probably the fire hose, which enabled significant improvements in fire-fighting technology and tactics. He also improved the hand-operated fire engines of the time by making them smaller, more mobile and more powerful, and he developed the series connection of several pumps to increase the pressure in order to achieve a greater range for the water jet. In 1690, together with his son, he was the author and illustrator of the Brandspuiten-boek, the first manual for fire fighting. Johann Lingelbach, Adriaen van de Velde and Eglon van der Neer...

This widely referenced pair of paintings is one of Francesco Conti’s most successful productions. Francesco Conti is one of the finest painters of 18th-century Florence. In the shimmering colors typical of his best work, he represents two opposite characters from the Bible: the virtuous Judith, whose courage saves her people by cutting off the head of the invader Holofernes, and the depraved Salome, who under the influence of her mother becomes responsible for the beheading of the prophet John the Baptist. The artist's talent lies in his ability to treat these two macabre subjects with a light touch, presenting us with two attractive women who seem to twirl with glee amidst the severed heads... 1. Francesco Conti, the “Florentine Tiepolo” Francesco Conti is a major painter of the Florentine school of the 18th century; he can even probably be considered, along with Giovanni Domenico Ferretti (1692-1768), as one of the two main painters of the second quarter of the Florentine 18th century. Born in Florence in 1682, Francesco Conti began his apprenticeship in the workshop of Simone Pignoni (1611 - 1698), a disciple of Francesco Furini; he was also influenced by the Venetian Sebastiano Ricci. A protégé of Marquis Riccardi, he accompanied him to Rome between 1699 and 1705, where he frequented Carlo Maratta's studio. He settled permanently in Florence in 1705. Painted exclusively on canvas, the majority of his work consists of religious subjects, altarpieces or private devotional works. It is likely that Conti himself was a devout churchgoer, as evidenced by his affiliation, in the third decade of the eighteenth century, to the Society of the Disciples of Saint-John-the-Baptist, and his entry, at the end of his life, into the fraternity of the Venerable Society of the Holy Trinity. In Florence, Conti worked for the Grand Duchy's major patrons, including the last Medici - in particular Giangastone and Annamaria Luisa, Electress Palatine - and confirmed his role as a reference painter under the Lorraine Regency, as master of the Public Drawing School, which was closely linked to the institute responsible for the manufacture of semi-precious stone mosaics, then located in the Uffizi complex. Matteo Marangoni, an art critic of the early 20th century, praised his "brushwork full of elegance and true spirit of the 18th century", pointing out that Conti was "probably one of the best colorists" of the Florentine school of his time. These two characteristics led the art historian Paolo dal Poggetto to nickname him the "Florentine Tiepolo". 2. Judith and Salome, two biblical characters opposing each other These two paintings form a pair presenting two biblical episodes, which have in common the depiction of a "heroine" carrying the severed head of a man. While the Salome episode might at first appear to be an echo of the Old Testament story of Judith, each character is the exact opposite of the other. Judith, whose story is told in the Book of Judith, is a beautiful young widow from Bethulia who, accompanied by her maid, went into the camp of the invading Assyrians and won the confidence of Holofernes, the general commanding the enemy army. Invited to a great feast on the fourth evening, she took advantage of Holofernes' drunkenness to cut off his head. “She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterward she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in her food bag...

Collections: J. Goodfriend, USA. Brown wash and pencil on laid paper Framed dimensions: 13.25 x 11.75 inches This powerful drawing was made at the time that Romney was painting the famous group portrait of the Gower Children now in Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Romney was a bold and incisive draughtsman who made numerous rich brown ink studies, principally for historical compositions; by contrast, comparatively few studies linked directly to his portraits survive. The existence of a group of studies for the Gower Children underscores its importance to Romney. The sitters were the five youngest of the eight children of Granville, 2nd Earl Gower who, at the time the portrait was commissioned, was President of the Council in Lord North’s government and one of the best-connected and most influential people in England. The present drawing which is a large scale treatment of the composition in its final form perfectly distils Romney’s conceit: the younger children dancing whilst their elder sister, in the guise of a Bacchante plays the tambourine. The bold and dramatic study underlines both the artistic confidence and classical grandeur Romney gained during his trip to Italy between 1773 and 1775. The commission from Granville, 2nd Earl Gower to paint five of his children came shortly after Romney’s Continental tour. The initial idea, as represented by the present drawing, seems to have been to paint Lady Anne, the figure on the right of the composition playing the tambourine, who was the youngest of Gower’s first four children by his second wife Lady Louisa Egerton and who married the Rev. Edward Vernon Harcourt, later Archbishop of York, with three of her younger half-siblings by Gower’s third wife, Lady Susanna Stewart: at the left Lady Georgina, who became Countess of St Germans following her marriage to the Hon. William Eliot; at the right Lady Charlotte Sophia, later Duchess of Beaufort and in the centre Lady Susanna, later Countess of Harrowby. Romney added a fifth child to the finished portrait, Gower’s son: Lord Granville, later created Viscount Granville and Earl Granville. In Italy Romney had produced a large number of studies of classical antiquities and old master paintings. The commission from Gower offered Romney the opportunity to explore a complex multi-figural group, putting into practice the kind of ambitious classical quotations that Reynolds was currently exploiting. In 1773 Reynolds had completed the remarkable group portrait of the Montgomery Sisters, now in the Tate Gallery, London, which showed them adorning a herm of the Roman god Hymen; the composition used a garland to link the three figures who were shown in classical costume dancing at the foot of a Roman sculpture. Scholars have long pointed to a similar sources for the two compositions: the works of Nicolas Poussin. Whilst the Montgomery Sisters is based, in part, on a Bacchanal now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Gower Children has always been associated with Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time, now in the Wallace Collection, London. It seems more likely that Romney was looking to an antique source in the form of the Borghese Dancers, a Roman relief, then in Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Romney would have seen the relief of interlocking, dancing maidens and would also have known Guido Reni’s Aurora...

Jacopo Zanguidi BERTOJA (1544-1574) Combat of five figures, bas-relief from the School of Athens after Raphael Ink on paper 43×34cm Interesting thing According to Professor David E...

Jacques GAMELIN Carcassone 1738-1803 Study after the triton of the Triumph of Galatea by Raphaël 1768 Black stone and light white chalk on blue paper Signed and dated lower right 41...

After Sir Peter Lely, Late 17th Century (1618–1680) James, Duke of York, (later James II) and Anne Hyde, Duchess of York Chalk on paper Image size: 8...

Company School 18th Century Ramnagar Fort, India Pen & ink on paper Inscribed and dated 1793 Acid free mount This incredible detailed work would probably have been drawn by an En...

Pen and ink, brown wash, heightened with white bodycolour Image size: 9 x 10 1/2 inches (22.75 x 26.75 cm) Mounted with hand made gilt frame Lingelbach presents a scene from the end...

Pen, ink and wash Framed dimensions: 13 x 11 ¼ inches Drawn c.1765 Verso: a study of a hanged man Mortimer has filled this small sheet with action, depicting in the top right, Apollo and Artemis...

"A View of Irvington on Hudson," a watercolor by John Henry Hill, captures the picturesque beauty of Irvington, a charming village nestled along the Hudson River. Hill, celebrated fo...

Pastel on paper, oval 9 x 7 ¼ inches; 230 x 185 mm Inscribed on the verso: ‘The Revd Henry Dabzac D.D./ late Senior Fellow of/ Trinity College Dublin/ ever to be lamented by all that knew/ Him. Extensive learning, zeal, gently tempered/ by a spirit of charity & above all, a strong/ faith & a piety deservedly gained/ the character of a great and good man./ This exceptional man died 12th May 1790/ This picture was his give to Jane [Mary] Crofton, his sincerely [missing] sister.’ Collections: Rev. Dr Henry Dabzac gift to his sister, Jane Crofton (d.1797); Sir Hugh Crofton (1763-1834); By descent to 1990; Private collection, Dorset to 2020. Literature: Robert Staveley, Traces of Past and Present, Dublin, 1895, p.74; Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800, online edition, no.J3751247 This characteristic pastel portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton was made early in his career; it depicts precisely the kind of education, well-connected Irish sitter who fuelled his success. The Reverend Henry Dabzac was from a distinguished Huguenot family, a celebrated academic historian, Dabzac received the Donegall lectureship in 1764 and from 1785 was Librarian and Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. According to his earliest biographer, Hamilton was the son of a peruke-maker based in Crow Street, Dublin. As Anne Hodge has pointed out, this places Hamilton’s father at the heart of the city: Crow street was a narrow thoroughfare formed part of the busy warren of streets bordered by the old Houses of Parliament and Trinity College at one end, and by Dublin Castle at the other. It is perhaps telling that in this early portrait, Hamilton shows Dabzac in a splendid powdered wig and his clerical bands. In 1754 Hamilton was apprenticed to James Mannin, a ‘pattern drawer’ who two years later was appointed master of the school of ornament at the Dublin Society’s drawing school, run by Robert West. Here Hamilton took the first prize in the 1755 competition, winning a premium of £1/16/. Hamilton developed a popular and profitable method of making pastel likenesses of sitters in a distinctive oval format. Hamilton developed a technique of using a sharpened pastel to hatch shaded areas of the features and, in the case of this portrait of Dabzac, the white powdered wig, which is drawn with particular care. In 1764 Hamilton moved to London where this small, oval pastels proved...

Art Sz: 6 1/2"H x 5 3/4"W Frame Sz: 9 1/2"H x 10"W Provenance: Sold at Sotheby's London July 7, 1983 lot 10. William Lock the Younger 1767–1847 William Lock the Younger of Norbur...

Art Sz: 5"H x 3"W Frame Sz: 9 3/4"H x 8" Paul Sandby RA (1731 – 7 November 1809) was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brothe...

This powerful pen and brown ink wash drawing is a study for an altarpiece depicting The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew. Signed and dated 1604, it was painted at the end of his life b...

This magnificent drawing from the Venetian Renaissance intrigues us in many ways. It depicts an allegorical composition whose meaning partly escapes us: a veiled figure seated on a stone bench (which we have identified as Chastity), seems to be turning away from a woman's bust beside her, below which are two rabbits, a traditional allegory of fertility, but also sometimes of lust. This drawing, executed on blue paper, undoubtedly belongs to the Venetian Renaissance. The inscriptions on the back of the old mounting board indicate the various attributions considered by its last owner, the British painter and art historian Sir Lawrence Gowing. We have retained the attribution to Giuseppe Porta proposed by art historian John Arthur Gere as the most relevant. We were incredibly fortunate to find a hexagonal frame of a very similar format for this drawing, the upper corners of which were formerly cut (irregularly). This 17th-century Dutch frame comes from an aristocratic collection in Lombardy, and creates a kind of fascinating chase around this Venetian drawing...

Il disegno rappresenta, come riportato a penna in basso al centro del foglio, il ritratto del celebre pittore dell'Emilia Romagna Francesco Albani, uno dei massimi rappresentanti del...

Provenance: Private Collection, USA. This drawing is by Ercole Procaccini the Younger, who represents the final generation of painters in the storied Procaccini family. The son of C...

Watercolour on paper, signed and entitled bottom right Image size: 12 x 10 inches (30.5 x 25.5 cm)

This small sketch, pencil on paper, can be attributed to Sir Thomas Lawrence, as also reported in the label on the frame (Sir Thomas Lawrence Painter of the Royal Academy). Due to r...

Pencil and chalk on paper Image size: 8 1/2 x 13 inches (22 x 33cm) This wonderful drawing depicts 'The Cleansing of the Temple', a biblical narrative where Christ expels merchants...

Medium: Watercolor and Ink Dimensions: 5.75" x 7.00" Signature: Signed Lower Right Original SIGNED Pen Ink and Watercolor Study for John Bull Taking a L...

This masterly frontispiece study, executed with a very sure hand, testifies to the survival of the great Baroque taste in 18th century Venice. It could be one of the very last works by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini: the few lines that cross the papal arms evoke those of Benedict XIV, who became pope in 1740, one year before the artist's death. 1. Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and the European influence of Venetian history painting in the 18th century Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was born in Venice in 1675 and trained in the studio of the Milanese painter Paolo Pagani (1655 - 1716). Pagani, who had been living in Venice since 1667, took him to Moravia and Vienna from 1690 to 1696. After a stay in Rome from 1699 to 1701, Pellegrini married Angiola Carriera in 1704, the sister of the great pastelist Rosalba Carriera. From 1708 onwards, Pellegrini left Venice and began an extensive tour of Europe: he worked in England between 1708 and 1713, where he met great success, particularly at Kimbolton Castle and Castle Howard. He then worked in Germany and the Netherlands, then in Bohemia and Austria, before returning briefly to England in 1719. In 1720 he was in Paris where he decorated the ceilings of the Royal Bank for John Law...

European School Late 18th Century Portrait of a Lady Pastel on paper, mounted on canvas Image size: 28 x 23 inches Contemporary style frame Provenance: Ernst Museum Auction This pastel portrait of a lady dates from the late eighteenth century. She is pictured in a white muslin dress...

ADRIEN SWEETS Eighteenth Century A Prospect of Richmond Park and Town from the Thames side Ink and wash Monogrammed and dated 1748 Image size: 8 ¾ x 12 ¾ inches (22 x 32.5 cm) A...

In this drawing, inspired by his stay in Naples in 1765, William Marlow presents us with a view of Cape Posillipo, to the west of Naples, an essential stage during the Grand Tour. Th...

George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761. A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...

In this lively and fresh drawing, probably taken from one of the artist's notebooks, Pajou presents us with a composition freely inspired by antiquity, as a souvenir of a visit to th...

Arriving in Rome in June 1735 as a resident at the Royal Academy, Pierre was unable to attend the Winter Carnival festivities of 1735, which he nevertheless immortalised in an engrav...

Property from the Estate of Mary S.B. Braga Art Sz: 8"H x 5 7/8"W Frame Sz: 13"H x 10 3/4"W

Original gouache of a Swiss Aubusson floral tapestry rug 18th century Art Sz: 14 1/2"H x 9"W Frame Sz: 23"H x 17"W w/ silver gilt scallop frame

Il disegno a matita grigia e rossa raffigura un intenso ritratto frontale di un fanciullo con cappello, con le braccia incrociate davanti. Sul retro, in grafia corsiva, è probabilme...

The Callings of Saints Peter and Andrew Robert Edge Pine 1730-1788 Chalk on paper Image size: 15 1/2 x 17 inches (39.5 x 43 cm) Original frame Here in Pine’s picture displays an ac...

After Sir Peter Lely 1618 - 1680 Anne Hyde, Duchess of York; King James II Pencil, ink and white chalk on paper, Image size: 10 x 8 inches (25.5 x 20.5 cm) Original frame This work,...

Pencil and wash Image size: 10 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches (27 x 40 cm) Mounted

Graphite and wash Image size: 10 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches (27 x 40 cm) Mounted