Sir Godfrey Kneller

Lady Henrietta Churchill and her son William

Circa 1710

A black pointer in a woodland landscape by John Frederick Herring Senior, circa 1830. Oil on canvas in a giltwood frame. Provenance: Arthur Ackerman and Son Frost and Reed Blains, Bruton Place, London John Frederick Herring, born in London in 1795, was the son of a London merchant of Dutch parentage, who had been born overseas in America. The first eighteen years of Herring's life were spent in London, where his greatest interests were drawing and horses. In 1814, at the age of 18, he moved to Doncaster in the north of England, and by 1815, had married Ann Harris. His sons John Frederick Herring Jr., Charles Herring, and Benjamin Herring...

Circle of Cornelius Johnson (1593-1661), a 17th century portrait of a lady, bust-length oval, wearing an ivory silk gown with blue silk bows and lace c...

A painting of Lord Methuen’s Spaniels Gipsy and Fairy, by William Barraud, standing beside a classical urn in a landscape by a lake, probably in the grounds of Corsham Court in Wiltshire, the Methuen family country seat. Signed and dated 'W Barraud...

A 17th century English portrait of a lady by Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), half-length in a painted feigned oval, wearing a green silk gown with chestnut coloured cloak over one shoulder, her fair hair curled in the fashionable ringlet style of the period. Oil on canvas in an English giltwood 'Lely' frame. We are grateful to Diana Dethloff and Catharine MacLeod (who are currently working on a Lely catalogue raisonné) for their confirmation of Lely as the artist from photograph analysis of this previously unidentified early work. Provenance: Private collection Nottingham until 2021 Mellors and Kirk sale December 2000, lot 1173 The sitter is likely to have been from an upper class or aristocratic family in court circles, who were the main source of Lely`s patronage. The simple composition serves to highlight the beauty of the sitter through portraying her pale decolletage and complexion, set against the gentle gaze of her blue eyes, the soft blush of her cheeks and her full red lips. Peter Lely (1618-1680) was originally of dutch origin and became Principle Painter to the King in 1661, following in the footsteps of Van Dyck who had died in 1641. He dominated the portrait painting scene in England for over 20 years, creating a distinctive 'court look' in his work which had a strong influence on many other artists. He had an extremely successful and popular portrait practice which meant that he soon had to develop production methods that could accommodate the high demand for portraits, and also for copies and versions of them which were given as gifts to family and courtiers. The use of studio assistants was a common practice for busy artists and as with Van Dyck, Lely is known to have used specialist assistants to execute particular parts of his paintings. Artists who worked in Lely`s studio included John Baptist Gaspars who specialised in drapery painting, William Wissing, John Greenhill...

Acrylic paint on paper Signed lower right by the artist

Acrylic paint on canvas Signed lower left

Acrylic paint on canvas Signed on the back Zahra ZEINALI was born in 1975 in Tehran, Iran. From 2001 to 2004, she studied Fine arts at the Art and Architecture University in Tehran. At the same time, she taught visual arts to children during 15 years. Passionate about photography, she trained in photography in 2007 at the House of Photography in Tehran. In 2012, she moved to France. Confronted with her new life, her vision of the world changed. Since 2020, she has resumed training in photography at the EFET School in Paris. Zahra ZEINALI The Doll’s House “What can a true artistic temperament aspire to after a youth spent in Iran today? To flee the hassles, prejudices, restrictions, to open wide a window of freedom rich in potentialities that were believed for a long time inaccessible. Zahra Zeinali became a visual arts teacher for fifteen years. Her pupils are 6 to 12 years old. Drawing, sculpture, painting, model design, she taught them a great diversity of techniques, but above all to think and design freely by themselves, in an atmosphere of joyful creative disorder which, surprisingly, is tolerated by a careful hierarchy. Then she studied four years at the University of Art and Architecture in Tehran. When she arrived in France, after a brief abstract period inspired by the rhythms of nature, it was at the time of the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks, which marked her deeply, to the point of lastingly darkening the ideal of emancipation and autonomy that she had projected on her stay in Paris. "There is no paradise on earth" she concluded with a melancholy smile. An old doll, bought for 1 euro in a storage room, triggers a click in her. The bitter imprint left by the Iranian confinement, the memory of her fifteen years of teaching visual arts to children, the loneliness of her Parisian exile, all this sentimental nebula found a plastic metaphor in the image of the doll. This is what these delicate earthenware faces evoke, often abused, abandoned, the childish innocence of their ingenuous gazes, a sort of strange absence from the world of the living, as if their attenuated life took place behind the mystery of a theater curtain...

Acrylic paint on canvas Signed on the back