Émile Renard

19th Century genre oil painting of a French cobbler at work

1883

Harry Brooker British, (1848-1940) The Model Aeroplane Oil on canvas, signed & indistinctly dated Image size: 13.5 inches x 17.5 inches Size including...

Alfred Provis British, (1818-1890) By the Fireside Oil on canvas, signed & dated 1869 Image size: 10.5 inches x 15.5 inches Size including frame: 21.5 inches x 26.5 inches This charming cottage scene by Alfred Provis features a woman preparing supper by a fire with her young daughter. As the mother peels the turnips and places them in the pot, the girl’s attention is drawn to the kitten feeding from a saucer. The dress and hat of the woman bears a similarity to those found Provis’s other scenes of Welsh cottage interiors. The artist was known to have visited North Wales around the time this painting was produced. In 1869, he exhibited a work entitled ‘Interior of a Welsh Farmhouse’ at the Royal Society of British Artists. Given the level of detail in the painting and the fact that it is in such an impressive original frame, it is possible this is the same painting as the one exhibited. Alfred Provis was a genre painter born on 18 February, 1818 in Chippenham, Wiltshire. He was the son of John Provis, a timber merchant and his second wife Ann Banks. He spent time in London being tutored by the historical and portrait artist John Wood (1801-1870) before returning to Chippenham. He began exhibiting at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1843, continuing to exhibit there regularly until 1886. He made his debut at the Royal Academy in 1846 with a work entitled ‘A Cottage Door...

A FEAST OF THE GODS WITH VENUS AND BACCHUS Collections: With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; John and Eileen Harris, acquired from the above, to 2015. Literature: Jacob Simon and Ellis Hillman, English Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Age of Thornhill, 1974, cat. no.12 (as by Louis Laguerre); Elizabeth Einberg (ed.), Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting, 1700-1760, exh. cat., London (Tate Gallery), 1987, cat. no.10 (as by Louis Laguerre); Tabitha Barber and Tim Bachelor, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, exh. cat., London (Tate Britain), 2020. Exhibited: Twickenham, Marble Hill House, English Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Age of Thornhill, 1974, no.12 (as by Louis Laguerre); London, Tate Gallery, Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting, 1700-1760, 1987, no.10 (as by Louis Laguerre); London, Tate Britain, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, cat. no 92, 2020. CUPID AND PSYCHE BEFORE JUPITER Collections: With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; Anthony Hobson, acquired from the above, to 2015. These recently re-united paintings are the most ambitious surviving baroque ceiling sketches made in Britain in the early eighteenth century. From the Restoration until the rise of Palladianism in the 1720s decorative history painting formed the preeminent artistic discipline in Britain. It was a field dominated by Continental artists including the Italian Antonio Verrio and the Frenchmen Louis Laguerre and Louis Chéron...

Unknown Artist (probably American, nineteenth century) Tavern Scene Oil on canvas, 15 x 12 inches Framed: 21 x 18 inches (approx.)