Pietro Barzanti

The Swimmer

Circa 1870

This statue is of Prince Albert Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria, Prince of Wales, future King Edward VII (1841-1910) dressed in a sailor suit. After a very popular painting of the young prince done in 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73) that is in the collection of the British Royal Family.

Sought by collectors worldwide, art and artifacts showing an early western presence in the Orient boomed with the opening of the China Trade by way of the sailing ship. The surviving paintings which capture the important Chinese harbors...

This attractive portrait features the five-masted schooner ELINOR H. at full sail in an active sea. The ship has crisp lines and a sharp sense of detail, likely because it was painte...

This original watercolor on paper features traffic on the River Humber in the City of Hull. Hull or Kingston upon Hull, is a port city in East Yorkshire, England. The painting is hig...

An interesting homage to the issue of rank amongst the crews and officers of all vessels, a captain is carried to his ready command by one of his subordinates through the ocean surf ...

Thomas Birch is considered one of the earliest American Marine painters of importance both in his own time and historically, forming the foundation of what would become a great American Maritime movement in the successive years of the 19th century. Born in England, Birch started as a landscape painter but after the War of 1812 he turned to marine subjects, taking inspiration from the best of both English and Dutch maritime traditions but refining these techniques into a very recognizable style all his own. The work featured here is a classic of Birch's later period, when he focused specifically on maritime subjects, mainly the busy waterways of Philadelphia Harbor. Here we see one of those scenes- a series of ships plying their trade, all framed by the city as it sits across the Delaware River, with the tall, white spire of what is either Independence Hall or Christ Church to the left of the main vessel. The details of the city are particularly good in this painting, with the wharf building to the left and the long line of buildings all along the shore. The American Merchant Bark at the center of this painting is rendered in excellent detail, from her house flag and pennant, to her rigging and sails, and down to her deck filled with the activity of crewmembers readying the ship to head out, her gilt billet...

Signed and dated: ‘F. Harwood Fecit 1764’ Collections: Probably commissioned by Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon (1743-1827); Probably by descent at Gordon Castle, Banffshire to c.1948; Possibly acquired by Bert Crowther of Syon Lodge, Middlesex; Jacques Hollander (1940-2004); Christie’s, 5 December 2013, lot 101; Private collection; Sotheby’s, 2 July 2019, lot 106 Literature: John Preston Neale, Views of the seats of noblemen and gentlemen, in England, Wales and Scotland, London, 1822, vol.I, unpaginated. This marble copy of an ancient bust in the Musei Capitolini usually identified as Faustina the Younger, the daughter of Antoninus Pius and future wife of Marcus Aurelius, was made in Florence by Francis Harwood in 1764. Harwood was one of the most prolific suppliers of decorative marbles for the Grand Tour market and this finely worked example demonstrates the quality of luxury goods available to travellers to Italy. So often anonymous, this unusually signed and dated example, raises questions about the status of marble copies in the period and of sculptors such as Harwood who are known principally for ornamental work. Harwood’s origins remain obscure. He is documented living in Palazzo Zuccari with Joshua Reynolds and the Irish sculptor Simon Vierpyl at Easter 1752, he had certainly settled permanently in Florence by the following year, when he is recorded working with Joseph Wilton. He was admitted to the Florentine Academy on 12 January 1755 (as pittore Inglese, although he was described as scultore in the matriculation account). After Wilson returned to England in 1755 Harwood appears to have worked in a studio near SS. Annunziata with Giovanni Battista Piamontini who had made life-size copies of The Wrestlers and The Listening Slave for Joseph Leeson in 1754. In 1758 both sculptors were contracted to make a statue and a trophy to complete the decoration of the Porta San Gallo, Harwood completing a statue of Equality, installed the following year. By 1760 Harwood was on the brink of his most productive period as a sculptor, producing copies of celebrated antiquities for the ever-increasing audience of Grand Tour travellers and for the domestic market in London. In 1761 Harwood met the young architect James Adam who was in Italy specifically to make contact with suppliers for Robert Adam’s burgeoning practice back in Britain. The Adams offered a remarkably cohesive design package to their clients, encompassing not just architecture, but fixtures, fittings and furniture as well. Harwood was able to supply the brothers with marbles for their new interiors. At Syon, for example, Harwood produced a full-size copy of Michelangelo’s Bacchus for the new dining room the Adams had designed for Hugh Smythson, 1st Duke of Northumberland. Harwood seems to have also specialised in producing sets of library busts. In 1758 Charles Compton, 7th Earl of Northampton, a distinguished traveller commissioned a set of busts which remain in situ at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Adam brothers were producing designs for new interiors at Castle Ashby at this date. The set included representations of: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Faustina the Younger, Sappho, Seneca and Homer. Each of these busts Harwood seems to have replicated for multiple patrons, another Adam patron, Thomas Dundas...

Dani Kafri "Family", 1989 grey bordilio marble 72x24x26 cm On the last day of WW2, in Czechoslovakia – 1945, Daniel Kafri was born on the brink between man...

Dani Kafri "Kiss", 1989 white carrara marble 72x24x26 cm On the last day of WW2, in Czechoslovakia – 1945, Daniel Kafri was born on the brink between manki...

BRECCIA FRAGMENT PLINTH Italy, 18th Century Breccia medicea 55 x d 25 cm 21 3/4 x d 9 3/4 in

This muscular male torso probably comes from a larger relief, which would have decorated the front part of a sarcophagus. It likely represents the figure of a satyr, standing, with t...

Italian 19th Century marble bust depicting the young Emperor Octavian. The sculpture, carved in white Carrara marble, is an exquisite example of neoclassical works and shows a fascin...