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Arthur Ferrier (1890-1973) - Mid 20th Century Oil, Green Jacket & Pearls

20th Century

A truly charming mid 19th Century scene in oil, showing a trio of men at a tavern, each smoking their clay pipes. The artist has wonderfully captured three ...

An exquisite and remarkable early 20th Century portrait in oil, attributed to the well-known Danish artist Peder Mork Monstead (1859-1941), depicting a Dani...

A characterful oil portrait showing a very happy elderly woman in a vibrant red headscarf and blue jacket. The artist has captured lovely pockets of colour in her rosy cheeks and pin...

Dim light illuminates a smoking woman in an impressionistic manner. The artwork is signed and dated in the bottom right-hand corner. Well presented in a gilded wood frame with a line...

This charming mid-19th-century oil painting attributed to English artist Edward John Cobbett (1815-1899) depicts a seated girl carrying a wicker basket within rolling scenery. Cobbett was a skilled English painter of landscapes and genre who exhibited regularly at London’s Royal Academy. This piece from around 1860 is emblematic of his rose-tinted escapism and celebrates the honest endeavours of rural life. The details are rendered skilfully, particularly the hands, skin tones and head. While the composition, with the horizon line crossing just beneath the shoulders, creates interest and permanence. He fathered twelve children, including eight daughters, so it’s plausible that some of them appeared in his portraits. The girl bears some resemblance to his depiction of ‘The Crofter's Daughter’. Born in Westminster, London, Cobbett was initially trained as a wood carver, probably by his father, who was a skilled ‘carver and gilder’. Evidently, the young man adopted the trade with considerable vigour, as some of his early carvings can be seen at York Minster. Around the age of 20, he began to pursue a career as an artist, and it's presumably at this point that he undertook formal tuition with the landscape painter Joseph William Allen (1803-1852). Allen was a founding member of the Society of British Artists, and his influence is evident. Following his 1833 debut at London’s Royal Academy, he matured into an artist of considerable merit, particularly popular among the rising middle classes. He was known by the Victorian press as one of the last great ‘bohemians’, thus associating him with a social and cultural milieu of freedom-loving, anti-establishment creatives. As a member of London’s Savage Club, his circle was a most intriguing one and included writers, artists, and musicians who sought to live on the fringes of society. This liberal sense of ‘joie de vivre’ translated through his work into depictions of ebullient country folk undertaking wholesome daily activities. Via his numerous rustic characters, he celebrated a simpler, albeit idealised, working-class utopia. The urban-dwelling bourgeois lapped it up, escaping into the abundance of an imagined moor, and vanishing into a community unplagued by formal rigour. Aside from the Royal Academy, his works were also shown at the British Institution, Liverpool Academy, and the Society of British Artists, where he was elected a member in 1856. He’s known to have collaborated with both William Shayer (1787-1879) and George Cole (1810-1883). He’s represented in numerous public collections, including at Glasgow Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Worcester City Art Gallery, and York Art Gallery. Provenance: Private collection, UK. Artist’s auction maximum: £20,052 for ‘Rural Idyll (1859)’, Oil on canvas, De Veres...

Juliette Lemontey (b. 1975, Metz, France) is a French artist based in Arles. Her work is an intimate exploration of the human presence, capturing both the weight and fragility of the...

Giampaolo Talani (1955-2018) The "mad scientist" of the art world, Talani created art out of virtually everything he touched. After completing his training at the Florence Academy of...

Max Walter Svanberg (1912-1994) Untitled, 1957 Gouache on paper Paper: 36 x 29 cm 14 1/8 x 11 in. Frame: 57 x 49 cm 22 1/2 x 19 1/3 in Signed and dated Max Walter Svanberg artwor...