Michael Pemberton Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Emil Faesch (1865 Basel - 1915 Basel). Sketch of a head. Charcoal on painting cardboard, 60 x 47.5 cm (folio size), signed and dated at lower right "E. Faesch. 1888.". Minor browning. - Carved in stone - About the artwork The life-size head has an immensely present presence. This effect is due to the fact that Faesch took his cue from academic classical...

Circle of Charles Angrand (1854-1926) The Loving Couple Pencil and stump on paper, 30 x 22 cm Dated "10.4.19" lower left. Trace of a dedication Otherwise unsigned. Provenance: Pr...

A colorful self-portrait from Ben Fenske, staring at the viewer straight-on. Hues of red dominate. Unframed. Ben Fenske (b. 1978) although a native of Minnesota, and has been worki...

Auguste Legras (1817-1887) Portrait of a young man in profile, signed lower right Charcoal, red and white chalks on paper 45 x 31.5 cm Framed : 52 x 39 cm This particularly evocati...

Charcoal and white chalk highlight on paper Label of J.M Maas Gallery (verso) 36cm × 28cm (54cm × 43cm framed) Etty, a student of Thomas Lawrence, R.A., was the first significant Br...

Attributed to Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger (Paris, 1715 – 1790) Dancing Couple Circa 1765–1770 Red chalk on cream paper; verso in black and red chalk 34 × 21 cm Unsigned Pro...

Hermann Prell (1854 Leipzig - 1922 Dresden-Loschwitz). Half-length portrait of a Pharisee, 1885. Sketch for the right-hand figure in the painting Judas Iscariot, 1886. Pencil drawing heightened with opaque white and black chalk on beige-grey wove paper (papier vélin), 34 x 27.8 cm (visible size), 52 x 45 cm (mount), signed, dated and inscribed "H. PRELL 1885 zu 'Judas'". Minor browning, collection stamp on the reverse. - In the shadow of betrayal - About the artwork This painting is the sketch for the head of the Pharisee offering the coins to Judas in one of Herrmann Prell's major works, the painting Betrayal of Judas, completed in 1886. The painting belongs to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is illustrated in Adolf Rosenberg: Prell, Bielefeld and Leipzig 1901, p. 21 (Fig. 19). It is especially highlighted in Thieme-Becker (vol. 27, p. 376). Hermann Prell, Betrayal of Judas, 1886 The monumental head, which fills the picture and is distinguished by its ornamented robe, is almost a lost profile, which in the executed painting is justified by the Pharisee's turning towards Judas. Despite the fact that the sitter withdraws from the viewer by turning away, it was necessary to artistically elaborate the motivation for the purchase of one of Christ's disciples, which is why the drawing focuses on the expression of the face, while the 'accessories' are treated in a more summary manner. In characterising the face, Hermann Prell performs a balancing act: since the Pharisee, despite his destructive actions, is an actor in the history of salvation, the head must show a dignity appropriate to the event, but at the same time the physiognomy must also bear witness to the scheming attitude that led to the betrayal. To solve this dilemma, Prell draws on the traditional depictions of the heads of the apostles, shading the face to indicate the obdurate darkness of the spirit and moving the base of the nose slightly upwards while the mouth falls away, thus giving a physiognomic expression to the motivation of the action. The fatal drama of the betrayal is expressed in the monumentalisation of the head and in the thunderous white highlights that contrast with the darkness of the chalk. As a study, considered by the artist to be a work in itself, this drawing reveals the pictorial problems and brainstorming of monumental painting. About the artist In 1872 Prell, who was one of the most important exponents of monumental painting of his time, began studying painting with Theodor Grosse at the Dresden Academy of Art and continued with Carl Gussow at the Berlin Academy in 1876. Hans von Marées taught him in Rome in 1878. More influential on his work, however, were Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger, with whom Prell had been friends since his student days and with whom he worked together on several occasions. Prell's first major work, which established his reputation as a monumental painter, were the frescoes in the banqueting hall of the Architektenhaus in Berlin in 1881/82, commissioned by the state and depicting the different periods of architecture. Prell then went to Italy for two years to study fresco painting. Other major commissions followed. These included monumental frescoes in the town halls of Worms (1884), Hildesheim (1882-92), Gdansk (1895) and Dresden, the staircase of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau (1893/94), the throne room of the German Embassy in Rome (1896-99) and the staircase of the Albertinum in Dresden (1900-1904). From 1886 Prell taught at the academy of arts in Berlin and in 1892 he was appointed professor at the academy of arts in Dresden. His students included Osmar Schindler and Hans Unger...

Black chalk and graphite on light weight cream wove paper, 16 1/8 x 11 1/4 inches, (410 x 286 mm), the full sheet. Signed, titled, and dated in sepia ink in the lower-center sheet area. With horizontal folds approximately 1-inch from the sheet edge at each of the four sheets. The drawing appears to have been folded at the sheet edges to fit into a frame. Finn mac Cumail (or mac Umaill), often anglicized Finn McCool or MacCool, is a hero in Irish mythology, as well as in later Scottish and Manx folklore. He is the leader of the Fianna bands of young roving hunter-warriors, as well as being a seer and poet. He is said to have a magic thumb that bestows him with great wisdom. He is often depicted hunting with his hounds Bran and Sceólang, and fighting with his spear and sword. Fionn MacCumhail was transformed into the character "Fingal" in James Macpherson's poem cycle Ossian (1760), which Macpherson claimed was translated out of discovered Ossianic poetry written in the Scottish Gaelic language. Fionn MacCumhail features heavily in modern Irish literature. Most notably he makes several appearances in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake...

Stately sanguine portrait of Leopold Hamilton Myers (Novelist) by Sir William Rothenstein (English, 1872-1945). Captured in Rothenstein's characteristic style, Myers looks directly at the viewer with a neutral expression. Although this portrait uses only two colors and minimal shading, the likeness of Myers is incredibly well captured. Leo (Leopold) Hamilton Myers (1881 – 1944) was a British novelist. Numerous examples like this one of the writer are in the Tate Museum. Initialed and dated in the lower right corner ("W.R. 1936") Inscription on verso indicating materials, subject, and artist. Presented in a new cream colored mat with foamcore backing. Mat size: 18"H x 12"W Paper size: 15.25"H x 10.75"W William Rothenstein (English, 1872-1945) was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry. Soon afterwards he married Bertha Dux, and they had six children, of which William was the fifth. Rothenstein was knighted in 1931. Rothenstein left Bradford Grammar School at the age of sixteen to study at the Slade School of Art*, London (1888-1893), where he was taught by Alphonse Legros, and the Académie Julian* in Paris (1889-1893), where he met and was encouraged by James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Whilst in Paris he also befriended the Anglo-Australian artist Charles Conder, with whom he shared a studio in Montmartre. In 1893 he returned to England to work on "Oxford Characters" a series of lithographic* portraits. In Oxford he met and became a close friend of the caricaturist* and parodist Max Beerbohm, who later immortalised him in the short story Enoch Soames (1919). During the 1890s Rothenstein exhibited with the New English Art Club* and, in 1900, won a silver medal for his painting The Doll's House at the Exposition Universelle. In 1898 he co-founded the Carfax Gallery in St. James' Piccadilly with John Fothergill. During its early years the gallery was closely associated with such artists as Charles Conder, Philip Wilson Steer, Charles Ricketts and Augustus John. It also exhibited the work of Auguste Rodin, whose growing reputation in England owed much to Rothenstein's friendship and missionary zeal. The gallery was later the home for all three exhibitions of The Camden Town Group*, led by Rothenstein's friend and close contemporary Walter Sickert. Rothenstein is best known for his portrait drawings of famous individuals and for being an official war artist in both World War I and World War II. He was also a member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters & Gravers. The style and subject of his paintings varies, though certain themes reappear, in particular an interest in 'weighty' or 'essential' subjects tackled in a restrained manner. Good examples include Parting at Morning (1891), Mother and Child (1903) and Jews Mourning at a Synagogue (1907) - all of which are owned by the Tate Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery owns over two hundred of his portraits. In 2011 the BBC and the Public Catalogue Foundation began cataloguing all of his paintings in public ownership online. Between 1902 and 1912 Rothenstein lived in Hampstead, London, where his social circle included such names as H.G.Wells, Joseph Conrad and the artist Augustus John. Amongst the young artists to visit Rothenstein in Hampstead were Mark Gertler...

Studio of Carlo Maratti (or Maratta) Camerano 1625 – Rome 1713 Studies of a kneeling female figure, an arm, a hand, and a head in profile Red chalk on paper 43.4 x 26.6 cm Unsigne...

A pair of original red conte crayon drawings in their original frames featuring two young women in period clothing.

Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet (1872 - 1967) A naked young woman seated Charcoal and red chalk on thin paper transfered on cardboard 49 x 39 cm Framed : 55.5 x 45.5 cm Octave Denis...