Peter Monamy

18th Century seascape oil painting of English naval ships & boats off a coast

C1720

Francis Sartorius British, (1734-1804) Bay Hunter & Groom Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 24.25 inches x 29.25 inches Size including frame: 32 inches x 37 inches A wonderful spor...

Abraham Hulk Snr British, (1813-1897) Fishing Boats off the Dutch Coast Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 11.75 inches x 17.75 inches Size including frame: 21.25 inches x 27.25 inch...

George Wright British, (1860-1942) On the Scent Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 9.5 inches x 15.5 inches Size including frame: 13 inches x 19 inches George Wright was a sporting and landscape artist who was born in Leeds in 1860. He was the son of George E Wright a cashier and his wife Elizabeth. His brother Gilbert Scott Wright...

John Clayton Adams British, (1840-1906) Hay Making Oil on canvas, signed & indistinctly dated 187(5)? Image size: 19.5 inches x 31.5 inches Size including frame: 28.5 inches x 40.5 ...

Georgina Lara British, (fl. 1862-1871) Bustling Village Life Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 19.5 inches x 29.5 inches Size including frame: 25.5 inches x 35.5 inches Georgina Lara also known as Edwina Lara was a London painter of rustic farmyard and village scenes. Her work also closely resembles that of Edward Masters...

John Holland Snr British, (1830-1886) The Malt Shovel Tavern Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 13 inches x 20.5 inches Size including frame: 18.25 inches x 25.75 inches Provenance: Frost & Reed A wonderful painting of figures sat outside a village inn by John Holland Senior. A wagon is shown delivering supplies as another cart drives off towards a windmill in the distance. In the foreground two people cut a log in half whilst their family looks on. The Malt Shovel Inn was most likely the one at Upper Lambourn in Berkshire. Over 500 years old, it was located on Malt Shovel Lane, and was originally a bakery, becoming an inn sometime during the mid 1700’s. It remained as a pub until its closure in 2016. The windmill in the distance was situated outside Lambourn on the road to Baydon. It was built in 1771 but was demolished around 1887 and is now the site of a farm. John Holland Senior was a painter of landscapes and coastal scenes who was born in Nottingham around 1830. He was the son of a painter and brother to Samuel Holland also a painter and sign writer. He was also uncle to his namesake John Holland (1857-1920) whom he taught to work in charcoal and Samuel S. Holland, both of whom were artists. By 1861, he had become a full time artist exhibiting at Suffolk Street from around this time until 1879, at the British Institution between 1865-1866 as well as exhibiting locally in Nottingham. He never married and lived for many years with his father, brother and his family at Vernon Street, Nottingham. Around 1867, he moved to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire where he exhibited locally. He would also often travel around the British countryside and coast to paint. He spent a few years in West Yorkshire but by 1871 had moved back to live with his family in Nottingham. However, he spent his final years living at Trebray Lodge, Tintagel, Cornwall where he died on 7 February 1886. A number of his works are held by the Buxton Museum, Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Nottingham Art Gallery and the Williamson Art Gallery. Presentation: The painting is housed in a new, English made gilt frame which is in excellent condition. The reverse bears an old label for Frost & Reed. Frost & Reed are a well-known fine Art Gallery, frame maker and fine art publisher founded in Bristol in 1808 by William Hill. The business was bought by John Frost in 1859 who ran it until his death in 1875. His nephew Walter Frost took over the business and in 1881 brought in William Reed...

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...

Expertise by Prof. Giancarlo Sestieri. Vincenzo Re (Parma, 1695 – Napoli?, 1762) born in Parma, was an Italian scenic designer who during his career worked as initially an assistant...

Simone Cantarini (Pesaro 1612 - Verona 1648) Adoration of the Magi Oil on paper applied to canvas, cm. 16,5 x 24 – with frame cm. 22 x 29 Antique sh...

Antonio Stom (Venice c. 1688 - 1734) Architectural Capriccio oil on canvas, cm. 88 x 113 - with frame cm. 106 x 132 Carved, sculpted and gilded wooden frame Expertise: Giancarlo S...

Giuseppe Antonio Pianca (Agnona di Borgosesia/VC, 1703 - after 1757) oil on canvas, cm. 49 x 57 - with frame cm. 67 x 77 Antique shaped wooden cassetta frame, ebony and gold decora...

Cristofano Roncalli (Pomarance 1552 - Rome 1626) Saint Catherine of Siena chooses the crown of thorns oil on wood, cm. 101,5x59.5 - with frame cm. 120x76 Shaped, carved and sculpted wooden cassetta frame, partly gilded and partly ebonized wood Expertise: Marco Ciampolini The marvellous scene that opens before our eyes is that of Christ's apparition to Saint Catherine of Siena; she must choose between a golden crown, the symbol of earthly royalty, and a crown of thorns, the symbol of virtuous Christian sacrifice. Catherine does not hesitate to choose the crown of thorns, her life in imitation of...