Caroline Hutchinson Art

This beautiful portrait by British artist William Drummond (act.1800-1860) depicts two sisters within an interior. It’s a charming glimpse into the lives of these young women. Dress...

ABOUT THE ARTWORK The work “JANNE,” is part of the author's broader exploration of the theme of human identity in the modern world. Special attention is paid to the portrayal of the...

Hans Burkhardt The Artist's Wife (1930) Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" 24" x 20 ½" x 1 ½" framed Dated 1930 lower right recto. Annotated "To Elsa HB Louise Burkhardt 1930. HB" verso. ...

Mid century portrait of two children, a young boy and girl in traditional dress, set in a rustic interior by M. Ray Stancliff (American, b. 1925). Si...

Nicely painted early 1900's oil painting. by Richard Hook. Great color and composition. Nicely framed.

Figure is an original painting realized in 1960 ca by Mino Maccari (1898-1989). Hand-signed in pencil lower left. In good conditions. The subject of this artwork is female figu...

This fine portrait by British artist William Moore (1790-1851) depicts a young man holding a book. He’s wearing a white shirt, black necktie, waistcoat and unbuttoned frock coat. During the...

A wonderful naive pair of 18th Century portraits of Mr and Mrs Rogers, (A pair). The details are: English school, circa 1784 Mr and Mrs Rogers Pastel on paper Inscribed with sitter...

Painting by French artist Christian Zeimert (b.1934 – 2020). Signed in lower right corner and titled on reverse "Gentilly". Zeimert's painted slow and meticulously. It took him se...

This exquisite portrait by British artist William Moore (1790-1851) depicts a young lady wearing a beautiful white dress with gigot sleeves. It’s a gentl...

Mother Mary, 2017 John Hartley discovered his life's passion while growing up in Piqua, Ohio. Encouraged to develop his talents in an academic environme...

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...