18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings of decorative urns with aloes and cacti from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand- made, parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania...

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...

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...

Peter Paillou (c.1720 – c.1790) was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. He gained repute in the 18th century as a natural history painter and illustrator. He was employed by two leading naturalists and antiquarians of the time, Taylor White (1701-1772) and Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). He illustrated the latter's British Zoology and decorated the hall at Downing, Pennant's house in Flintshire, with several pictures of birds...

Peter Paillou (c.1720 – c.1790) was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. He gained repute in the 18th century as a natural history painter and illustrator. He was employed by two leading naturalists and antiquarians of the time, Taylor White (1701-1772) and Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). He illustrated the latter's British Zoology and decorated the hall at Downing, Pennant's house in Flintshire, with several pictures of birds...

Peter Paillou (c.1720 – c.1790) was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. He gained repute in the 18th century as a natural history painter and illustrator. He was employed by two leading naturalists and antiquarians of the time, Taylor White (1701-1772) and Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). He illustrated the latter's British Zoology and decorated the hall at Downing, Pennant's house in Flintshire, with several pictures of birds...

Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings of decorative urns with aloes and cacti from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand- made, parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania...

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...

Peter Paillou (c.1720 – c.1790) was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. He gained repute in the 18th century as a natural history painter and illustrator. He was employed by two leading naturalists and antiquarians of the time, Taylor White (1701-1772) and Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). He illustrated the latter's British Zoology and decorated the hall at Downing, Pennant's house in Flintshire, with several pictures of birds...

Nicolas-André COURTOIS Paris 1734-1806 Bust of a woman in profile 1791 Sanguine Signed and dated lower left on the original mount 43.5 x 37 cm framed 19 x 25 cm

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...

Peter Paillou (c.1720 – c.1790) was a British artist best known for his paintings of birds, many of which were used as book illustrations. He gained repute in the 18th century as a natural history painter and illustrator. He was employed by two leading naturalists and antiquarians of the time, Taylor White (1701-1772) and Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). He illustrated the latter's British Zoology and decorated the hall at Downing, Pennant's house in Flintshire, with several pictures of birds...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

Questo piccolo disegno, che per gli evidenti stilemi neoclassici può essere datato fra la fine del XVIII e gli inizi del XIX secolo, rappresenta la fuga del re Giacomo II Stuart-ulti...

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

Pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on laid paper Image size: 12 ¾ x 16 inches (33 x 40.5 cm) Wash mount and period frame Boxing was a subject that Rowlandson depicted on a number ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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