Lavinia Fontana

Portrait of A Girl

This lovely French Old Master portrait oil painting is attributed to the circle of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Painted circa 1810 it is a head and shoulders profile of a beautiful woman, resting her head on one hand. There is superb attention to detail and vibrant colouring. An excellent example of a French Old Master portrait of the period. Unsigned. Provenance. London estate. Condition. Oil on canvas, 15 inches by 12 inches unframed and in good condition. Frame. Housed in a gilt frame, 20 inches by 17 inches framed and in good condition. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style. Although he considered himself a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, it is his portraits, both painted and drawn, that are recognized as his greatest legacy. His expressive distortions of form and space made him an important precursor of modern art, influencing Picasso, Matisse and other modernists. Born into a modest family in Montauban, he travelled to Paris to study in the studio of David. In 1802 he made his Salon debut, and won the Prix de Rome for his painting The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles. By the time he departed in 1806 for his residency in Rome, his style—revealing his close study of Italian and Flemish Renaissance masters—was fully developed, and would change little for the rest of his life. While working in Rome and subsequently Florence from 1806 to 1824, he regularly sent paintings to the Paris Salon, where they were faulted by critics who found his style bizarre and archaic. He received few commissions during this period for the history paintings he aspired to paint, but was able to support himself and his wife as a portrait painter and draughtsman. He was finally recognized at the Salon in 1824, when his Raphaelesque painting of the Vow of Louis XIII was met with acclaim, and Ingres was acknowledged as the leader of the Neoclassical school in France. Although the income from commissions for history paintings allowed him to paint fewer portraits, his Portrait of Monsieur...

A portrait of a lady three-quarter length, seated in an interior, wearing a red silk gown draped in a pink silk sash with an exotic bird perched on her hand and one arm resting on a stone plinth, her young daughter wearing a green silk gown standing at her side. Oil on canvas, housed in a period 'Lely' giltwood frame. This double portrait was painted at the height of Dahl's career in circa 1715 when Dahl had become firmly established as one of the leading portrait painters in Britain. Although the identities of the sitters are currently unknown, it is a sensitive depiction of a close and affectionate bond between a mother and daughter, with the young girl's hand resting affectionately on her mothers lap. The tamed exotic bird adds a charming decorative element which also serves to convey the high social status of the lady, given only the very wealthy would be able to own such a rare and expensive pet and the lively colouring of the bird's feathers is reflected in the colours of the sitters' silk gowns. Provenance: Private collection, London Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1659-1743 London) was born in Stockholm in Sweden and studied under Martin Hannibal (d 1741) and later with David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl. In 1682 he travelled to London, where he became acquainted with Godfrey Kneller and Henry Tilson, and in 1685 he left for Europe with Tilson, working briefly in Paris before continuing to Venice and Rome, where they stayed for about two years. In Rome Dahl converted to Roman Catholicism and gravitated towards the circle of Christina, former Queen of Sweden, who sat for him (Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincs). He returned to England with Tilson via Frankfurt and arrived in London in 1689, staying in England for the remainder of his career. During Dahl's absence, Kneller had consolidated his supremacy in London as the most fashionable portrait painter, but Dahl rapidly became Kneller’s closest competitor. His patrons probably had roots in the Swedish diplomatic circles, but it expanded as a result of his ability and his agreeable personality. His prices were lower than those of Kneller and he favoured softer, more diffused, colour tones and could respond to his sitters with sincerity and humanity. Politically, Kneller supported the ascendant Whigs while Dahl was a Tory, but they frequently painted the same sitters from both parties, and in spite of fundamental differences in technique and temperament, their work was sometimes similar in appearance. Dahl was prolific but rarely signed his work, and comparatively few of his portraits were engraved in mezzotint, the method used by Kneller to widen his reputation. By 1690 he had painted the aged Duke of Schomberg (engraved by William Faithorne) and Prince George of Denmark (London, Kensington Palace). He was ignored by William III but received commissions from Princess Anne, including one for a portrait of herself (Oakly Park, Ludlow, Salop). He also painted the future Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and his informal portrait of the Duchess (Althorp House, Northants), formerly attributed to Kneller, is perhaps the most intimate of all images of her. During the 1690s he secured the patronage of Charles Seymour, the ‘Proud’ 6th Duke of Somerset, who ordered a series of seven full-length portraits of notable contemporary beauties from Dahl (1690s; Petworth House, W. Sussex, NT). This was originally a scheme similar to Kneller’s more famous ‘Hampton Court Beauties’, but the portraits were subsequently reduced to three-quarter-length formats. The features of the sitters are not individualized, but they possess a decorative, languorous glamour that recalls Lely rather than Kneller. Somerset gave Dahl further employment over the next 25 years. In 1698, following the death of Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, Dahl was offered the post of court painter at Stockholm, which he apparently refused, preferring to remain in London at his studio in Leicester Fields, near the Swedish legation. In about 1700 he was joined by a young compatriot, Hans Hysing, who worked with him for many years. Dahl seems not to have married until after 1708, He had a son Michael (d. 1741), also a painter, of whose work nothing is known, and two daughters. After the accession of Queen Anne in 1701, she and Prince George sat for a number of official portraits. His royal patronage ceased with Queen Anne’s death, and when Dahl refused to paint the infant Duke of Cumberland in 1722. He was suspected of Jacobite sympathies, and relations had cooled between him and the Swedish legation. However, his practice continued to prosper, and he acquired another important patron in Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, who shared his political views and whose circle included the architect James Gibbs and the poets Matthew Prior and Alexander Pope, all of whom Dahl painted. Oxford commissioned several portraits of himself. In the earliest (1719; Welbeck Abbey...