English School Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

This fine mid-19th-century watercolour by accomplished British artist Octavius Oakley RWS (1800-1867) depicts a harvest girl leaning in a cottage doorway. It was shown at the Academy...

This charming mid-19th-century watercolour depicts three children, possibly siblings, within an interior. Attired in the latest fashions, they each hold a pose. On the left, a young...

This charming portrait of Miss Smernove by British artist, James Stephanoff (1784-1874) is rendered with a masterful touch. It depicts the confident young lady wearing a white high-w...

A pastel portrait of Lady Margaret Smith-Burges, later Countess Poulett (1754-1838) by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). Oval, pastel on paper 29.5 x 24cm (excluding frame), in an ornate giltwood and gesso frame with a coronet crest, circa 1785. Inscription on reverse ' Portrait in crayons by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the Dowr. Countess Poulett'. This is a rare and early work in Lawrence's career who as a child prodigy began working as a youth in pastels, moving on to work almost exclusively in oils after 1790. Margaret (born Burges) was the daughter of Ynyr Burges and Margaret Brown. She became the wife of Sir john Smith-Burges, 1st Baronet in 1771 and later after his death the wife of John, 4th Earl Poulett whom she married in 1816. During her first marriage, Margaret was a regular visitor to Bath and very likely sat for the young Lawrence whilst he was living there. Thomas Lawrence was born the son of an innkeeper who moved the family to Bath in 1779. His father, recognising his son's talent from an early age, advertised his services as a portraitist in the Bath Journal; 'Master Lawrence continues to take very striking Likenesses of Ladies and Gentlemen in the most pleasing attitudes, either in pencil or crayons'. The large number of potential sitters who had come to Bath 'for the season' or to 'take the waters' helped to support the family with a steady income and the child prodigy became very popular with aristocrats and the famous and wealthy. Hi sitters in Bath included Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and the actress Sarah...

Gentleman Smoking Graphite on tinted paper, n.d. Unsigned Image size: 9 x 6 1/2 inches frame size: 17 x 13 inches Exhibited: The British Art of Illustration 1800-1995, No. 505 Chris Beetles Limited, London (see label) Provenance: Estate of Barbara Edwards, the daughter of the artist Chris Beetle Limited (see label) Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Washington, DC (see label) Arthur Rackham RWS (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was an English book illustrator. He is recognized as one of the leading literary figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, which were combined with the use of watercolor, a technique he developed due to his background as a journalistic illustrator. Rackham's 51 color pieces for the Early American tale became a turning point in the production of books since – through color-separated printing – it featured the accurate reproduction of color artwork. Some of his best-known works include the illustrations for Rip Van Winkle, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Biography Rackham was born at 210 South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, London as one of 12 children. In 1884, at the age of 17, he was sent on an ocean voyage to Australia to improve his fragile health, accompanied by two aunts. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art. In 1892, he left his job and started working for the Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. His first book illustrations were published in 1893 in To the Other Side by Thomas Rhodes, but his first serious commission was in 1894 for The Dolly Dialogues, the collected sketches of Anthony Hope, who later went on to write The Prisoner of Zenda. Book illustrating then became Rackham's career for the rest of his life. By the turn of the century, Rackham had developed a reputation for pen and ink fantasy illustration with richly illustrated gift books such as The Ingoldsby Legends (1898), Gulliver's Travels and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (both 1900). This was developed further through the austere years of the Boer War with regular contributions to children's periodicals such as Little Folks...