(Circle of) Godfrey Kneller

PORTRAIT of a Lady in Silver Silk Dress c.1725, Superb Gilded & Carved Frame

Circa 1725

Portrait of a Young Gentleman, Pieter Van Der Dvssen c.1664 Jan van Haensbergen (1642–1705) This charming portrait is an excellent example of late 17th century child portraiture and is from one of the most prolific periods in art history – the Dutch Golden Age. A vast number of artists produced work to fulfil the demands and tastes of a broad Dutch society, and many cities in the Netherlands developed into distinct artistic centres, characterised by style and specialities of subject. The quality of our portrait is similar to the works of the highly specialised ‘fijnschilders’, who were working in Leiden at the time; these artists executed meticulous small-scale paintings. As with the artist’s other works of children, Haensbergen painstakingly recorded many details including a fine depiction of the face, and the surface effects of the materials and the pearl clasps. The young sitter is Walther Bernt Pieter Van der Dussen. He was born into a wealthy noble Catholic family in Delft in 1654. In this portrait he would be around ten years of age, dating the work to circa 1664, which is also the year before the artist’s marriage to Johanna van Heusden. The Van der Dussen family were great patrons of the arts and commissioned a number of major works from eminent artists in Delft & Amsterdam. Van der Dussen died in 1716. The wooded setting, the lamb, and the “picturesque” or “Roman” dress...

This exquisite portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, was painted in the era of London’s Great Fire - a young woman has been depicted wearing the most luxurious attire and a fortune ...

Titan Fine Art present this exquisite portrait, that formed part of a historic collection of an English aristocratic family, Lord and Lady Sandys at their magnificent baroque and Reg...

Titan Fine Art present this striking portrait, which was painted by one of the most talented artists working in England during the last half of the 17th century, John Greenhill. Gre...

The sitter is elegantly attired in a blue silk dress over a white frilled chemise and a striking crimson mantle. The artist, Thomas Murray, can be described as one of the most successful and talented during the last part of the seventeenth century. It is not surprising that Murray painted the portraits of King William III, Queen Mary, Queen Ann as well as several other high-ranking individuals. The influence of Sir Godfrey Kneller is evident and even expected considering the importance of Kneller, and even though the formula employed for head and shoulders portraits of woman during the period is similar, Murray’s work is distinguishable by a refined and elegant manner, a smooth overall feel, and often, distinctive eyes. Murray is known to have employed not only the same pattern as our portrait but the three distinctive colours (blue, white, red) many times. Thomas Murray was born in Scotland but moved to London to study with a member of the De Critz family. Later he was a pupil of the English portraitist John Riley (1646-1691), who was court painter to King William III and Queen Mary, and was practising as a painter on his own in the 1680s. In 1691 he took over Riley’s studio when that artist died in 1691 and he established a very successful practice. The Rev, James Dalloway accounted that Murray “was remarkable for his personal beauty and for the elegance of his manner” and he was also noted to have been hard working, courteous and popular with his customers. His portraiture retains an individual style and easily recognised but his earlier work is similar to John Closterman, who was a fellow pupil, and many consider this period to be his finest. Murray invested wisely in property and when he died in 1735, he left around £40,000. He had no children and he bequeathed his money to a nephew with instructions that his monument, with a bust, should be erected in Westminster Abbey, provided that it did not cost too much – but his nephew decided that it was indeed “too expensive” and the plan did not proceed. He is buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Murray’s work is represented in many British country houses and private collections, the National Portrait Gallery London, Royal Society and Middle Temple in London, and in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. A good example of 17th century British portraiture...

This portrait depicts an elegant, aristocratic women wearing a yellow silk dress with white chemise and a red mantle elegantly draped around her body. By tradition the portrait represents Mary Capel, Countess of Essex. Born Lady Mary Bentinck in 1679, she was the daughter of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an early stage the favourite of stadtholder William, Prince of Orange (the future King of England) and his wife Anne Villiers (died 1688). Lady Mary's maternal grandparents were Sir Edward Villiers and Lady Frances Howard...

Circle of Jacques-Louis David (French, 18th Century) Provenance: Private Collection, Buenos Aires Exhibited: “Art of Collecting,” Flint Institute of Art, Flint, Michigan, 23 November 2018 – 6 January 2019. This vibrant portrait of young man was traditionally considered a work by Jacques-Louis David, whose style it recalls, but to whom it cannot be convincingly attributed. Rather, it would appear to be by a painter in his immediate following—an artist likely working in France in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Several names have been proposed as the portrait’s author: François Gérard, Louis Hersent, Anne-Louis Girodet (Fig. 1), Theodore Gericault, and Jean-Baptiste Wicar, among others. Some have thought the artist Italian, and have proposed Andrea Appiani, Gaspare Landi...

Provenance: Torres Family Collection, Asunción, Paraguay, ca. 1967-2017 While the genre of portraiture flourished in the New World, very few examples of early Spanish colonial portraits have survived to the present day. This remarkable painting is a rare example of female portraiture, depicting a member of the highest echelons of society in Cuzco during the last quarter of the 17th century. Its most distinctive feature is the false beauty mark (called a chiqueador) that the sitter wears on her left temple. Chiqueadores served both a cosmetic and medicinal function. In addition to beautifying their wearers, these silk or velvet pouches often contained medicinal herbs thought to cure headaches. This painting depicts an unidentified lady from the Creole elite in Cuzco. Her formal posture and black costume are both typical of the established conventions of period portraiture and in line with the severe fashion of the Spanish court under the reign of Charles II, which remained current until the 18th century. She is shown in three-quarter profile, her long braids tied with soft pink bows and decorated with quatrefoil flowers, likely made of silver. Her facial features are idealized and rendered with great subtly, particularly in the rosy cheeks. While this portrait lacks the conventional coat of arms or cartouche that identifies the sitter, her high status is made clear by the wealth of jewels and luxury materials present in the painting. She is placed in an interior, set off against the red velvet curtain tied in the middle with a knot on her right, and the table covered with gold-trimmed red velvet cloth at the left. The sitter wears a four-tier pearl necklace with a knot in the center with matching three-tiered pearl bracelets and a cross-shaped earing with three increasingly large pearls. She also has several gold and silver rings on both hands—one holds a pair of silver gloves with red lining and the other is posed on a golden metal box, possibly a jewelry box. The materials of her costume are also of the highest quality, particularly the white lace trim of her wide neckline and circular cuffs. The historical moment in which this painting was produced was particularly rich in commissions of this kind. Following his arrival in Cuzco from Spain in the early 1670’s, bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo actively promoted the emergence of a distinctive regional school of painting in the city. Additionally, with the increase of wealth and economic prosperity in the New World, portraits quickly became a way for the growing elite class to celebrate their place in society and to preserve their memory. Portraits like this one would have been prominently displayed in a family’s home, perhaps in a dynastic portrait gallery. We are grateful to Professor Luis Eduardo Wuffarden for his assistance cataloguing this painting on the basis of high-resolution images. He has written that “the sober palette of the canvas, the quality of the pigments, the degree of aging, and the craquelure pattern on the painting layer confirm it to be an authentic and representative work of the Cuzco school of painting...

“Timete Deum et date Illi honorem quia venit hora iudicii Eius” (Fear the Lord and honour Him, for the hour of His judgement has come): the passage from John's Apocalypse (chapter 14...

Dimensions: 41 x 32 cm without frame - 47 x 55.5 cm with frame Antique box frame made of solid wood and walnut burl. Publications: unpublished The painting by Bernardino Detti (14...

18th Century European Portrait of a Child Saint John the Baptist Oil on Canvas 19 x 14 1/4 inches This lovely and sensitively painting has been examined by a professional restorer w...

A charming portrait of a young girl presented in the original, hand carved giltwood frame. Circle of John Opie (1761-1807) Portrait of a young girl, half length With old label to t...