Old Masters Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

E. Rusch (late 19th century) Memento mori - Study of a skull Pencil drawing Drawing Size - 11 x 18 in Framed Size - 17 1/2 x 24 1/2 in Memento mori is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period...

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...

Watercolour on ivory colored and watermarked paper"J. Whatm Turkey M.", 1820 c.a. Beautiful watercolour representing a typical Italian scene of ordinary life in XIX century: people...

Original drawing by Lauren Rinaldi float mounted in the pictured simple white frame measuring 17in x 14in. Lauren Rinaldi works using unbiased portraits of women’s bodies as a veh...

Pen and brownish black ink on grayish-cream laid paper, 6 1/2 x 8 inches (165 x 175 mm), irregular hexagonal sheet with margins. Some archival repairs along the top sheet edge, scatt...

Ancient Persian Miniature is an original China Ink and Watercolour realized by an artist of 19th Century. Good condition for a little brown ...

Collections: Henry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950); Private collection, UK to 2019 Framed dimensions: 14.50 x 15.38 inches This drawing is one of only two known portrait drawings by Romney (as opposed to preliminary studies for portraits) and is dated by Alex Kidson as being executed no later than 1769. It is likely that the present drawing was originally part of a sketchbook, now largely dismembered (Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal), which Kidson notes, contained some of Romney’s most beautiful early drawings. This drawing, and a second sheet formerly with Andrew Wyld, have been identifying as depicting the Rev. William Atkinson...

"Veneer" is an original oil pastel, ballpoint pen, color pencil, and graphite on arches paper work by Lauren Rinaldi. This piece ships in the pictured archival custom frame. The pape...

Collections: Russell sale, Christie’s, 14 February, 1807: ‘John Russell, Esq., R.A. deceased, crayon painter to His Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and Duke of York; and brought from his late Dwelling in Newman Street’, lot 92, ‘St Peter’, bt. Thompson (£1.13s); Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 25th September 1980, lot 113; Private collection, UK, 2016. Literature: Martin Postle, 'Patriarchs, prophets and paviours: Reynolds's images of old age', The Burlington Magazine, vol. cxxx, no. 1027, October 1988, pp. 739-40, fig. 9; Martin Postle, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures, Cambridge, 1995, p.136, repr.; Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, J.64.2928. Signed and dated: J Russell/ fecit 1772 (lower right) Framed dimensions: 25 x 31 inches John Russell was admitted to the Royal Academy in March 1770, at the same time as Daniel Gardner. The nascent Academy Schools were still establishing their teaching structures, but central to the syllabus were the twin components of drawing after the antique and from life models. By 1772 Russell had already been awarded a silver medal and progressed to the life academy, where he produced this remarkable pastel study of George White. White was the most famous model employed by the Royal Academy and prominent artists in the second half of the eighteenth century. A paviour – or street mender –by profession White had been discovered by Joshua Reynolds, who in turn introduced him to the Academy. Russell’s striking head study demonstrates his abilities as a portraitist and pastellist, at the same time showing his interest in the Academy’s preoccupation with promoting history painting. George White was one of the most celebrated models in eighteenth-century London. According to the painter Joseph Moser: 'Old George…owed the ease in which he passed his latter days, in a great measure to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who found him exerting himself in the laborious employment of thumping down stones in the street; and observing not only the grand and majestic traits of his countenance, but the dignity of his muscular figure, took him out of a situation to which his strength was by no means equal, clothed, fed, and had him, first as a model in his own painting room, then introduced him as a subject for the students of the Royal Academy.' As Martin Postle has pointed out, whilst characterful studies of old men posed as biblical figures, prophets or saints by Continental old masters were readily available on the art market – Reynolds himself had copied a head of Joab by Federico Bencovich in the collection of his friend and patron, Lord Palmerston - finding a model in Britain from whom to execute a painting was more difficult. White therefore offered a rare opportunity for artists to combine portraiture and history painting, by painting a model in the guise of an historical or literary character. In 1771 Reynolds showed at the Royal Academy a picture of White entitled Resignation. It was engraved in 1772 and accompanied by a stanza from Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village, implying a literary context to what is essentially a portrait. In his annotated Royal Academy catalogue, Horace Walpole noted: ‘This was an old beggar, who had so fine a head that Sir Joshua chose him for the father in his picture from Dante, and painted him several times, as did others in imitation of Reynolds. There were even cameos and busts of him.’ White sat to, amongst others Johan Zoffany, John Sanders, Nathaniel Hone and the sculptor John Bacon...

An exceptional ink, wash and graphite portrait of a gentleman by Henri-Joseph Hesse, dating from circa 1820, the time of the Bourbon restoration in France. It depicts a dashing figur...

The female figure in Oliver Benson's "Lady of the Temple" is drawn in exquisite detail. This fine drawing is floated on a mat board and framed in a silver frame measuring 11h x 8.25...

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...