Attributed to Adriaen van Diest: A Port Scene - Oil on Canvas

After Richard Westall, early 19th century ‘The Fishing Party’ Oil on panel; held in a period Empire style frame. Dimensions listed refer to framed size. Provenance: Private Colle...

A large early nineteenth century scroll work painting, depicting two rabbits beneath white peonies, together with butterflies and a grass hopper. Ink and...

A large late 19th century watercolour depicting a sailing ship 'The Gowanbank' at sea. Signed JW Holmes. The gilt paper mount inscribed: Ship "Gowanbank...

Charles Jervas (1675-1739) Portrait of Joseph Mellish (1675-1733) Oil on canvas; held in a carved period frame Dimensions refer to size of frame. Provenance: Blyth Hall, Nottinghamshire, England; by descent to Sir Andrew Buchanan of Hodsock Priory, Nottinghamshire In 1635 John Mellish, a merchant tailor of London, bought the estate of Blyth in Nottinghamshire. His son, a wealthy Oporto merchant, dying unmarried, left Blyth in 1703 to a cousin, Joseph Mellish, who became one of Newcastle’s earliest and most important political supporters in the county. He went up to Clare College, Cambridge in 1692 and on to the Inner Temple the following year. He married Dorothea Gore, daughter of Sir William Gore...

Henry Pickering, Portrait of a Gentleman Oil on canvas; signed and dated 1759; held in a giltwood period frame Provenance: Lenygon & Morant Ltd. c.1900; Knoedler, October 1912 (Sto...

Follower of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792) A double portrait of a married couple Sir Thomas Tancred (d.1784) and his wife Penelope (d.1837) daughter of Thomas Ashton (or Assheto...

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...

This small landscape shows a hunting scene: two riders are chasing a stag with their dogs at the edge of a forest. Signed by Peter von Bemmel, it is typical of the production of this...

A very fine painting by the renowned seascape painter Arthur Joseph Meadows,Off Calais; fishing fleet returning at low tide. Housed in an antique style gilt frame the size overall is...

S Lawson Booth : Country House in extensive landscape with cattle in the foreground, oil on canvas signed and dated '98, 60cm x 90cm (35x23 inches approx image) size with frame appro...

James ward landscape oil Bringing in the Catch A charming scene of a family "bringing in the catch" showing figures outside a cottage, man pullng in the boat with his dog watching by...

This early 20th century oil on canvas depicts a nautical scene with a view of St Michaels Mount beyond. Although as yet, not attributed to a particular artist,this painting has cl...