Ink Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

An illuminated page from a book likely in reference to palace life during Emperor Jahangir's reign over the Mughal Empire. Circa 1750. Gouache and ink with gold heightening on cre...

Emperor Jahangir and Empress Nur Jahan exchanging lotus blossoms; a symbol of beauty, purity, honesty, rebirth, self-regeneration, and enlightenment....

A joyful scene of lighthearted merriment in the palace of Jangahir Mahal Agra Circa 1750. Gouache and ink with gold heightening on light weight cream laid paper, 8 1/4 x 6 inches (2...

Vishnu in the form of Krishna being serenaded with his beloved Radha. An illuminated page from the epic of Mahabharata circa 1690. Gouache and ink with gold heightening on cream lai...

An illuminated page from a book likely in reference to palace life during Emperor Jahangir's reign over the Mughal Empire. circa 1750. Gouache and ink with heightening in gold on li...

Emperor Jahangir depicted with his harem attendees aboard a pleasure cruise, the water filled with lotus blossoms; symbols of paradise itself. Circa 1750. Gouache and ink with gold ...

A beautiful composition depicting Empress Nur Jahan on a tiger hunt, an act of feminism. Circa 1750. Gouache and ink with heightening in gold on brown laid paper, 12 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches (317 x 210 mm), with a floral-motif border painted in blue and oxblood, the full sheet. With extensive inscriptions in Persian written in black ink on the verso. In good condition with overall toning and minor creasing, all consistent with age. The color is rich and and fresh with bright yellow illumination. In the distance we see the Jahangir Mahal Agra, as well as a sage meditating in his hut. A beautiful composition. Nur Jahan was fond of hunting and often went on hunting tours with her husband and was known for her boldness in hunting ferocious tigers. She is reported to have slain four tigers with six bullets during one hunt. According to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan this feat, inspired a poet to declaim a spontaneous couplet in her honor: "Though Nur Jahan be in form a woman, In the ranks of men she...

circa 1750. Gouache and ink with heightening in gold on brown laid paper, 12 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches (317 x 210 mm), with a floral-motif border painted in blue and gold, the full sheet. With extensive inscriptions in Persian written in black ink on the verso. In good condition with extraordinary color. We see Empress Nur Jahan making an offering to a sage in his hut, as Emperor Jahangir looks on from a tree stand. Nur Jahan was fond of hunting and often went on hunting tours with her husband and was known for her boldness in hunting ferocious tigers. She is reported to have slain four tigers with six bullets during one hunt. According to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan this feat, inspired a poet to declaim a spontaneous couplet in her honor: "Though Nur Jahan be in form a woman, In the ranks of men she...

An unusual horizontal composition with extensive marginalia. Circa 1750. Gouache and ink with gold heightening on light weight cream laid paper, 5 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (140 x 298 mm...

An illuminated page from a book likely in reference to palace life during Emperor Jahangir's reign over the Mughal Empire. Circa 1690. Gouache and ink with gold heightening on light...

In this charming scene a maid appears bashful as she is introduced by her mother to the shepherd’s son. Ink and wash on hand made, cool-toned cream laid paper, 6 3/4 x 8 7/8 inches...

Georg Philipp I RUGENDAS (1666-1742) Frederick I of Prussia Red chalk, ink and brown wash on paper 45x42 cm This drawing has been long considered representative of Charles VI. In r...

A pair of oval drawings for Ovid, Metamophoses Left: The Triumph of Amphitrite (Book I) Right: Diana and Actaeon (Book III) From: Ovid, Metamophoses These mythological studies are a...

Portrait is an Ink, pastel and Watercolor realized by an artist of 18th Century. Good condition on a grey paper, included a brown cardboard passpartout. No signature.

A lovely, early drawing of the Roman god Mercury. Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper, with a partial crown and shield watermark, 7 1/4 x 4 7/8 inches (184x 123 mm) (matrix). In go...

English School, 18th century Pen and black ink with gray wash on cream laid paper, 9 1/4 x 5 inches (238 x132 mm). 1/4 inch repaired loss, top center, to the left of the figure’s h...

Graphite and ink on handmade, watermarked C & I Honig laid paper, 8 15/16 x 6 3/4 inches (226 x 170 mm). Signed illegibly in ink, lower margin. Scattered light creasing and surface...

The Parnassus after Raphael • 18th century Pen and Ink Wash Drawing • Later glazed wood frame, ca. 62 x 78.5 cm • Mounted behind a modern arched matt...

The School of Athens after Raphael • 18th century Pen and Ink Wash Drawing • Later glazed wood frame, ca. 62 x 78.5 cm • Mounted behind a modern arch...

Ink Drawing of a Man Courting A Woman Signed by B. Koller dated 1796. This 18th Century Ink Drawing of a Man Courting A Woman is Signed by the Swiss artist B. Koller and dated 1796. This is an oval shaped drawing of a couple in a landscape. This antique ink drawing...

Ozias Humphry 1742-1810 Portrait of Frances Abington Pen and brown ink Image size: 7 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches Giltwood frame The actress Frances (Fanny) Barton, better known as Mrs. Abing...

Grimace is a beautiful brown and black China ink drawing and watercolor on wire rod paper, made by an anonymous artist of the late 18th century. A precious old master's original dra...

18th Century French Sanguine drawing, possibly a preparatory sketch for the painting by Nattier after the painting by Rubens. Presented in shaped 'marie-louise' mount in plain gold wood frame with collection label. The subject is the Queen Marie de' Medici seated on a grand throne, the baby is in the arms of Health while Justice looks over him. Fecundity brings a cornucopia of fruit with the heads of the other children the Queen will bear. The Sun rides his chariot across the sky to indicate that Louis XIII was born in the morning and the calm figure of France surveys the whole scene. An engraving exists (see the Wellcome Collection) of this same image: 'The birth of King Louis XIII', after the engraving by B. Audran the younger after the painting by Jean-Marc Nattier after the oil painting of Peter Paul Rubens in the Louvre 'La Naissance du Dauphin (future Louis XIII) à Fontainebleau, le 27 septembre 1601'. Jean-Marc Nattier (17 March 1685 – 7 November 1766) was a French painter. He was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier (1642–1705), a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois (1655–1703), a miniaturist. He is noted for his portraits of the ladies of King Louis XV's court in classical mythological attire. He received his first instruction from his father, and from his uncle, the history painter Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717). He enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1703 and applied himself to copying pictures in the Luxembourg Palace, making a series of drawings of the Marie de Médici painting...

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...

Studies for portrais is an original china ink drawing on ivory-colorated paper realized by an Anonymous Artist of the late 19th Century. In very good conditions. Image Dimensions: 8...

Portrait is an original Modern artwork realized in the half of the 18th Century in France. Original watercolor on ivory paper. The work is surrounded by a colored frame. The sig...

Pen, black ink, wash, and white heightening on blue paper Provenance: with F. R. Meatyard, London, around 1925; where acquired by: Dan Fellows Platt, Englewood, New Jersey; by descent to his wife: Ethel Bliss Platt; by whom given to: The Princeton University Art Museum; by whom consigned to: Schaeffer Galleries, New York, 1944; where acquired by: Wilhelm Suida; thence by descent to: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, 1959-1996 Private Collection, USA Literature: Janos Scholz, “Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 109, no. 770 (May 1967), pp. 296, 299. Elaine Claye, “A Group of Portrait Drawings by Jacopo Amigoni...