18th Century Art

Animal Figures from Ancient Rome, from the Series "The Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed", is an original etching from the end of the 18th century, made by Various Old Masters...

Animal Figures from Ancient Rome, from the Series "The Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed", is anoriginal etching from the end of the 18th century, made by Various Old Masters...

Ancient Roman bust, from the Series "Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed", is an original etching of the end of the 18th century, made by Various Masters. In very good condition, exce...

Human heads from Ancient Rome, from the Series "Antiquities of Herculaneum Exposed", original etching from the end of the 18th Century, made by Various Old Masters. In very good con...

"Near Mill Hill, Gravesend" is an original etching by John Thomas Smith. It depicts a cottage and farmstead with a few small figures. The piece is titled on ...

Collections: J. Goodfriend, USA. Brown wash and pencil on laid paper Framed dimensions: 13.25 x 11.75 inches This powerful drawing was made at the time that Romney was painting the famous group portrait of the Gower Children now in Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Romney was a bold and incisive draughtsman who made numerous rich brown ink studies, principally for historical compositions; by contrast, comparatively few studies linked directly to his portraits survive. The existence of a group of studies for the Gower Children underscores its importance to Romney. The sitters were the five youngest of the eight children of Granville, 2nd Earl Gower who, at the time the portrait was commissioned, was President of the Council in Lord North’s government and one of the best-connected and most influential people in England. The present drawing which is a large scale treatment of the composition in its final form perfectly distils Romney’s conceit: the younger children dancing whilst their elder sister, in the guise of a Bacchante plays the tambourine. The bold and dramatic study underlines both the artistic confidence and classical grandeur Romney gained during his trip to Italy between 1773 and 1775. The commission from Granville, 2nd Earl Gower to paint five of his children came shortly after Romney’s Continental tour. The initial idea, as represented by the present drawing, seems to have been to paint Lady Anne, the figure on the right of the composition playing the tambourine, who was the youngest of Gower’s first four children by his second wife Lady Louisa Egerton and who married the Rev. Edward Vernon Harcourt, later Archbishop of York, with three of her younger half-siblings by Gower’s third wife, Lady Susanna Stewart: at the left Lady Georgina, who became Countess of St Germans following her marriage to the Hon. William Eliot; at the right Lady Charlotte Sophia, later Duchess of Beaufort and in the centre Lady Susanna, later Countess of Harrowby. Romney added a fifth child to the finished portrait, Gower’s son: Lord Granville, later created Viscount Granville and Earl Granville. In Italy Romney had produced a large number of studies of classical antiquities and old master paintings. The commission from Gower offered Romney the opportunity to explore a complex multi-figural group, putting into practice the kind of ambitious classical quotations that Reynolds was currently exploiting. In 1773 Reynolds had completed the remarkable group portrait of the Montgomery Sisters, now in the Tate Gallery, London, which showed them adorning a herm of the Roman god Hymen; the composition used a garland to link the three figures who were shown in classical costume dancing at the foot of a Roman sculpture. Scholars have long pointed to a similar sources for the two compositions: the works of Nicolas Poussin. Whilst the Montgomery Sisters is based, in part, on a Bacchanal now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Gower Children has always been associated with Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time, now in the Wallace Collection, London. It seems more likely that Romney was looking to an antique source in the form of the Borghese Dancers, a Roman relief, then in Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Romney would have seen the relief of interlocking, dancing maidens and would also have known Guido Reni’s Aurora...

Speech is an original and unique drawing in ink on paper realized by Jan Peter Verdussen, with sketches on the rear. The State of preservation is very good with the traces of time. ...

Corpo Satollo Non Crede Al Digiuno is an original print realized in 1788 by Carlo Lasinio. Original etching hand-colored. Printed by Niccolò Pagni and Giovanni Bardi, Firenze (Ital...

Image dimensions: 25.5 x 18 cm. Mexican Idols, Deities and Ministers is a fine etching, hand-watercolored, realized by the engraver Gianfrancesco Pivati. This original print, repre...

Offers and Sacrifices to the Sun, among the Floridians is a fine etching, hand-watercolored, realized by the engraver Gianfrancesco Pivati. This original print, representing the hum...

Image dimensions: 25.5 x 18 cm. Transformations is a fine etching, hand-watercolored, realized by the engraver Gianfrancesco Pivati. This original print, representing the "fifth an...

Virginia Kings Sepulchres Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Vol. VIII, Plate LVII Image Dim: cm 25.5 x 18; Sheet Dim: cm 37.5 x 23.8; Passepartout Dim: cm 49 x 34 Beautiful Etching, H...

Moscovian Christening Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Vol. VIII, Plate LXXXIX Image Dim: cm 25.5 x 18; Sheet Dim: cm 37.5 x 23.8; Passepartout Dim: cm 49 x 34 Wonderful Etchings, Ha...

View and Entrance of the Royal Mosque and the Imperial Market Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Vol. V, Plate XXXV Image Dim: cm 25.5 x 18; Sheet Dim: cm 37.5 x 23.8; Passepartout Dim:...

The Great Burmese Feast: Sapan Giache Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Tom.VIII, Plate XXVIII Image Dim: cm 25.5 x 18; Sheet Dim: cm 37.5 x 23.8; Passepartout Dim: cm 49 x 34 Very Fi...

Sacrifices among the natives - From “New Scientific and Curious Dictionnary concerning the Sacred and the Profane Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Tom.VII, Plate XIV Image Dim: cm 25....

Funeral Procession among the indigenouses - From “New Scientific and Curious Dictionnary concerning the Sacred and the Profane Etchings, Hand-Water...

The Holy Council - From “New Scientific and Curious Dictionnary concerning the Sacred and the Profane Etchings, Hand-Watercoloured. Tom.IX, Plate XLIII Image Dim: cm 25.5 x 18; She...

Assassinat De Basseville à Rome is an original black and white etching realized by Pierre Gabriel Berthault, after Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines in 1793. Title with caption on plate on the lower center: "Assassinat de Basseville, à Rome/ le 13 Janvier 1793, ou 23 Nivose An Ier de la République". Below the image on the lower margin, "Swebach Desfontaines onv. et del. / Berthault sculp." is etched on plate. This modern artwork is numbered "N. 76", because it is from the series Les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française. As a matter of fact, Pierre-Gabriel Berthault is well-known for having engraved plates from this collection with the collaboration of the engraver Jean Duplessis-Bertaux. A work - hanging in the balance between news and history - with illustrations of salient or minimal events occurred during the French Revolution. As a celebration of the new ideals of brotherhood, justice, and equality, Les Tableaux immediately became a point of reference for journalism at the time. Of traditional cut, namely showing a view with many human figures, the engraving simplified the lines to be immediately readable for the general public. In our specific case, this original print represents the murder of Hugou de Bassville or Basseville (7 February, 1743 – 13 January, 1793), a French journalist and diplomatist, and protector of the radical Jacobins in Rome. In excellent conditions, except for a usual yellowing of the paper on the edges and a light trace of oxidations on the lower and right margins, beyond the marginal line of the matrix. Pierre-Gabriel Berthault (Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, 1737 - Paris, 1831) was a French master who made engravings from drawings by Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non (known as the Abbot of Saint-Non) and from paintings by Louis François Cassas. He depicted many views of Italy and created the collections Voyage à Naples and Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Palestine et de la basse-Egypte. Before the French Revolution, he was famous for being the author of the Vues intérieures de Paris and for tables with architectural elevations.

"English Country Fisherman by the Cottage" is an original etching by John Thomas Smith. The miniature etching features a country cottage with a thatc...

"Near Tottenham Midd." is an original etching by John Thomas Smith at the top right of the image, reading "Drawn & Etch'd by J. T. Smith, Engraver of the Antiquities of London & Envi...

(After) JAN VAN DER BRUGGEN (Brussels c1649 1690 Paris), A Drunken Night Cap, Wine is a Mocker, mezzotint, c. 1720, with artist's name Mieris lower left in t...

Attributed to HUBERT ROBERT (Paris 1733 - 1808) Dancing couple (recto) Various sketches (verso) Red chalk and charcoal on the reverse numbered in pencil “4229” circa 1770 34 x 21 c...

"Figure by the Cottage in Forest" is an original etching by John Thomas Smith. The miniature landscape shows a pair of cottages in the woods, nestled back into the trees. A river flo...

François Vivares was known to have produced several copies of images after older masters, such as, in this case, Rembrandt van Rijn. In this set, Vivares reproduces "The Quacksalver" (1635, Bartsch 129), "Beggar man and beggar woman conversing" (1630, Bartsch 164), and "Beggar Seated Warming...

"Figures Outside the Monastery" is an original etching by Jan Frans van Bloemen. It depicts people on the path to a church. 7" x 10 1/4" art 19 1/4" x 22 5/8" frame Jan Frans van Bloemen (baptized 12 May 1662 - buried 13 June 1749) was a Flemish landscape painter mainly active in Rome. Here he was able to establish himself as the leading painter of views (vedute) of the Roman countryside depicted in the aesthetic of the classical landscape tradition. Van Bloemen predominantly painted classical landscapes, taking his inspiration from the Roman Campagna. His landscapes, with their recession through a series of planes, soft, warm lightning and classical and religious subject matter, drew on the examples of artists such as Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet. His paintings are exquisitely imbued with that "difficult-to-define pastoral ambience" which helped to make him such a great painter in the eyes of his contemporaries. The technique and subjects of the work of Jan Frans van Bloemen are also related to painters such as Jan Asselijn, Thomas Wyck...

"Forest Glen" is an original etching by John Thomas Smith. The piece was initialed in plate. It depicts a small inlet to a lush forest. 3 5/8" x 3 1/2" art 12 7/8" x 12 3/4" frame ...

"Country Inn by the Pond" is an original etching by John Thomas Smith. It depicts a cozy building surrounded by trees and vegetation and next to a pond. 3" x 5 1/4" art 16" x 18 1/...

Pen, ink and wash Framed dimensions: 13 x 11 ¼ inches Drawn c.1765 Verso: a study of a hanged man Mortimer has filled this small sheet with action, depicting in the top right, Apollo and Artemis...

Unknown (European, probably Eighteenth Century) Shepherds and Peasants in a Landscape Ink, watercolor, and gouache on vellum; 12 5/8 x 19 3/8 inches Framed: 20 x 28 inches (approx.)

Pastel on paper, oval 9 x 7 ¼ inches; 230 x 185 mm Inscribed on the verso: ‘The Revd Henry Dabzac D.D./ late Senior Fellow of/ Trinity College Dublin/ ever to be lamented by all that knew/ Him. Extensive learning, zeal, gently tempered/ by a spirit of charity & above all, a strong/ faith & a piety deservedly gained/ the character of a great and good man./ This exceptional man died 12th May 1790/ This picture was his give to Jane [Mary] Crofton, his sincerely [missing] sister.’ Collections: Rev. Dr Henry Dabzac gift to his sister, Jane Crofton (d.1797); Sir Hugh Crofton (1763-1834); By descent to 1990; Private collection, Dorset to 2020. Literature: Robert Staveley, Traces of Past and Present, Dublin, 1895, p.74; Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800, online edition, no.J3751247 This characteristic pastel portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton was made early in his career; it depicts precisely the kind of education, well-connected Irish sitter who fuelled his success. The Reverend Henry Dabzac was from a distinguished Huguenot family, a celebrated academic historian, Dabzac received the Donegall lectureship in 1764 and from 1785 was Librarian and Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. According to his earliest biographer, Hamilton was the son of a peruke-maker based in Crow Street, Dublin. As Anne Hodge has pointed out, this places Hamilton’s father at the heart of the city: Crow street was a narrow thoroughfare formed part of the busy warren of streets bordered by the old Houses of Parliament and Trinity College at one end, and by Dublin Castle at the other. It is perhaps telling that in this early portrait, Hamilton shows Dabzac in a splendid powdered wig and his clerical bands. In 1754 Hamilton was apprenticed to James Mannin, a ‘pattern drawer’ who two years later was appointed master of the school of ornament at the Dublin Society’s drawing school, run by Robert West. Here Hamilton took the first prize in the 1755 competition, winning a premium of £1/16/. Hamilton developed a popular and profitable method of making pastel likenesses of sitters in a distinctive oval format. Hamilton developed a technique of using a sharpened pastel to hatch shaded areas of the features and, in the case of this portrait of Dabzac, the white powdered wig, which is drawn with particular care. In 1764 Hamilton moved to London where this small, oval pastels proved...

Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) ‘Ambassadeur de Siam’ and ‘La Sultana Reine’ Both titled lower centre, the drawing of the ambassador inscribed with colours intended for the prints, e...

Artist: Samuel and Nathaniel Buck (English, 1696-1779) and (?-1759/1774) Title: "St. Martin's Abbey" (Plate 333) and "Lady's Chappel" (Plate 331) Portfolio: Buck's Antiquities or Venerable Remains of Above 400 Castles, Monasteries, Palaces in England and Wales Year: 1726-1739 Medium: Set of Two Original Engravings on watermarked laid paper Limited edition: Unknown Printer: Unknown Publisher: Robert Sayer, London, UK Reference: Lowndes page 303-304; Upcott page 33 Sheet size (each): approx. 11.13" x 18.25" Image size (platemark) (each): approx. 7.5" x 14.5" Condition: "St. Martin's Abbey" has a minor crease to upper left corner and repaired edge wear to lower right corner. "Lady's Chappel" has faint toning to sheet and minor soiling in margins. They are both otherwise strong impressions in excellent condition Notes: Comes from Samuel and Nathaniel Buck's three volume portfolio "Buck's Antiquities" or "Venerable Remains of Above 400 Castles, Monasteries, Palaces in England and Wales" (1726-1739), which consists of 428 engravings. Both "St. Martin's Abbey" and "Lady's Chappel" have unidentified watermarks in the center of their sheets. They both also have "Liverpool Free Public Library" chop mark/blind stamps at bottom center of their sheets. Old price pencil inscribed in margins. Saint Martin's Abbey is a community of Roman Catholic Benedictine monks who follow the Rule of St Benedict...

Francis Hayman RA 1708–1776 Self-Portrait Oil on oak panel Image size: 8 x 6¼ inches Contemporary gilt frame This newly discovered work is the earliest known self portrait by Francis Hayman, dated to the mid to late 1720’s. The small scale of the portrait gives it a strong sense of intimacy. Whereas clients would often dress themselves in their best clothes for a sitting, Hayman has portrayed himself in informal attire, with his shirt unbuttoned and a wig cap. Born in 1708 to a respectable Devonshire family, his training began at the tender age of ten under the tutelage of the historical painter Robert Brown, who was probably an uncle. By the 1730’s he is known to have been engaged in painting scenery for the popular theatres on Goodman’s Fields and Drury Lane. He established a studio on St Martin’s Lane, and demonstrated his versatility as one of the most important painters of his time in portraits, illustration and history painting. Indeed, he was one of the first English painters deemed to have the skill and proficiency to rival that of the foreign masters, such as Holbein and Kneller, who were brought in by the court to make up for the perceived shortcomings of the native artists. Led by William Hogarth, Hayman and other artists began to create a new movement in the English art world. Thomas Gainsborough was one of his pupils, whom he is said to have introduced to the more lascivious and debauched underbelly of London life. After mostly making his living as an illustrator, in the 1740’s Hayman was commissioned by the proprietor of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Jonathan Tyers, to produce a series of four large celebratory canvases depicting British victories from the Seven Years War. His association with Tyers continued, and over the next ten years he produced a number of large decorative paintings...

José de Páez (1727-1790) Colonial Mexican painting from the 18th century. Conserved in excellent condition. "La Sagrada Familia" Oil on Copper 8 x 12 in ...

This masterly frontispiece study, executed with a very sure hand, testifies to the survival of the great Baroque taste in 18th century Venice. It could be one of the very last works by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini: the few lines that cross the papal arms evoke those of Benedict XIV, who became pope in 1740, one year before the artist's death. 1. Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and the European influence of Venetian history painting in the 18th century Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was born in Venice in 1675 and trained in the studio of the Milanese painter Paolo Pagani (1655 - 1716). Pagani, who had been living in Venice since 1667, took him to Moravia and Vienna from 1690 to 1696. After a stay in Rome from 1699 to 1701, Pellegrini married Angiola Carriera in 1704, the sister of the great pastelist Rosalba Carriera. From 1708 onwards, Pellegrini left Venice and began an extensive tour of Europe: he worked in England between 1708 and 1713, where he met great success, particularly at Kimbolton Castle and Castle Howard. He then worked in Germany and the Netherlands, then in Bohemia and Austria, before returning briefly to England in 1719. In 1720 he was in Paris where he decorated the ceilings of the Royal Bank for John Law...

Colonial School, Mexico, XVIII Century "San Francisco Javier" Oil on canvas 18 x 14 in.

Pair of Italian 18' century paintings , oil on canvas with Venetian Palace gardens , antiques sculptures and various figures . Measurements with frame cm 75 x101

In this lively and fresh drawing, probably taken from one of the artist's notebooks, Pajou presents us with a composition freely inspired by antiquity, as a souvenir of a visit to th...

In this drawing, inspired by his stay in Naples in 1765, William Marlow presents us with a view of Cape Posillipo, to the west of Naples, an essential stage during the Grand Tour. Th...

Pair of Italian 18' century paintings , oil on canvas with Venetian Palace gardens , antiques sculptures and various figures . Measurements with f...

Arriving in Rome in June 1735 as a resident at the Royal Academy, Pierre was unable to attend the Winter Carnival festivities of 1735, which he nevertheless immortalised in an engrav...