Peter Engels More Art

Titan Fine Art are pleased to present this exquisite portrait. As much attention is paid to the woman's luxurious apparel as her facial features. The ...

This beautiful portrait was painted circa 1725 and is a fine example of the English eighteenth century portrait style. The artist has chosen to depict the lady against a plain background wearing a simple red silk dress and transparent headdress hanging down the back. The sitter is not shown with jewellery or any other elements to distract the viewer’s attached, thus highlighting the beauty of the young sitter. This restrained manner achieves a sense of understated elegance. The portrait genre was valued particularly highly in English society. Neither landscapes nor allegorical pictures were ever priced so highly at exhibitions and in the trade as depictions of people, from the highest aristocracy to scholars, writers, poets and statesmen. With the rich colouring and lyrical characterisation, these works are representative of the archetypal English portrait and is are very appealing examples of British portraiture...

The sitter in this superb portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, is shown with the grandiloquence characteristic of the eighteenth-century French school of painting. The young nobleman has been portrayed wearing an ingeniously embellished French ceremonial armour, a mauve cloak, and an abundance of cascading curls falling below his shoulders. Our portrait proclaims to every onlooker that this is a superior being. The manner in which portraits were painted was set out by the terms of the commission and usually marked significant life events such as a betrothal, a death, elevation of rank… but they almost always emphasised the wealth and importance of the sitter. This type of portrait had become a standard format for aristocratic portraiture in Europe during the last quarter of the seventeenth century up to the middle of eighteenth century. Incorporated into the background was often a raging battlefield or a military encampment; our portrait is free from these trappings and contains a dramatic moody sky ensures the viewer focuses mainly on the subject. The features of the sitter’s face have been captured with great sensitivity, his confident gaze perhaps reflecting the near invincibility afforded by this steel suit. The flamboyance and penetrating sense of character, lending an air of noble expectancy to the composition, seems almost eclipsed by the artist's virtuosic handling of paint. It is not hard to understand why many wealthy sitters commissioned the artist to paint their portraits. Such fine and ornate armour was not actually used on a battlefield and thus its portrayal in portraiture was largely symbolic of a sitter’s wealth and status as well as a claim of succession to a chivalrous tradition. The style of hair and neckcloth were fashionable circa 1740. Held in an exquisite eighteenth century carved and gilded frame - a fine work of art in itself. Louis Tocqué was a very successful French portrait painter active during the Rococo period of art. His work was known for its attention to detail, its portrayal of the character of the sitter, the refined postures, and the delicacy of the rendered draperies. He created both realistic and expressive portraits. Tocqué was born in Paris in 1696 and trained with the famous portrait painters Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas Bertin, and Jean Marc Nattier whose daughter he later married. He entered the Academy in 1731 and became a full member in 1734 with his portraits of Galloche and the sculptor Jean Louis Lemoine, and he pursued a brilliant career as a portrait painter, receiving numerous commissions from members of the French aristocracy and royalty. His works were highly sought after by collectors of the time, and his reputation earned him the appointment of official portrait painter to the court of France in 1746 – in fact he stayed at most of the courts in northern Europe. From 1737 to 1759 he exhibited a large number of works at the Salon. Tocqué's paintings can be found in museums and private collections around the world. Recent sales...

Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Gown Holding a Sheer Scarf c.1675-85 Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723) Titan Fine Art present this captivating portrait by the leading late seve...

Titan Fine Art present this striking portrait, which was painted by one of the most talented artists working in England during the last half of the 17th century, John Greenhill. Gre...

The sitter is elegantly attired in a blue silk dress over a white frilled chemise and a striking crimson mantle. The artist, Thomas Murray, can be described as one of the most successful and talented during the last part of the seventeenth century. It is not surprising that Murray painted the portraits of King William III, Queen Mary, Queen Ann as well as several other high-ranking individuals. The influence of Sir Godfrey Kneller is evident and even expected considering the importance of Kneller, and even though the formula employed for head and shoulders portraits of woman during the period is similar, Murray’s work is distinguishable by a refined and elegant manner, a smooth overall feel, and often, distinctive eyes. Murray is known to have employed not only the same pattern as our portrait but the three distinctive colours (blue, white, red) many times. Thomas Murray was born in Scotland but moved to London to study with a member of the De Critz family. Later he was a pupil of the English portraitist John Riley (1646-1691), who was court painter to King William III and Queen Mary, and was practising as a painter on his own in the 1680s. In 1691 he took over Riley’s studio when that artist died in 1691 and he established a very successful practice. The Rev, James Dalloway accounted that Murray “was remarkable for his personal beauty and for the elegance of his manner” and he was also noted to have been hard working, courteous and popular with his customers. His portraiture retains an individual style and easily recognised but his earlier work is similar to John Closterman, who was a fellow pupil, and many consider this period to be his finest. Murray invested wisely in property and when he died in 1735, he left around £40,000. He had no children and he bequeathed his money to a nephew with instructions that his monument, with a bust, should be erected in Westminster Abbey, provided that it did not cost too much – but his nephew decided that it was indeed “too expensive” and the plan did not proceed. He is buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Murray’s work is represented in many British country houses and private collections, the National Portrait Gallery London, Royal Society and Middle Temple in London, and in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. A good example of 17th century British portraiture...

19th Century Portrait of a Lady French Pastel on Canvas c1850-60 Indistinctly signed Unframed This has at some time been removed from its frame there is a small hole as shown in pho...

Portrait of Colonel William Helyar (1621-1698) and Rachel Helyar (c.1633-1678) c.1656 Circle of Robert Walker (act. 1637-1656) These fascinating portraits, presented by Titan Fine Art, depict Colonel William Helyar, High Sheriff of Somersetshire, and his wife Rachel Helyar nee Wyndham, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Hugh Wyndham, 1st Baronet (died 1663) of Pilsden Court, Dorset. They are exquisite examples of portraiture during the Interregnum when England was under various forms of republican government. The history of the seventeenth century is in part the story of the Stewarts and their approach to government and the church; their ebbing and flowing popularity and the disastrous decisions that led to Civil War. But another fascinating dynasty also ruled Britain: the Cromwell’s. Between 1653 and 1659, following the Civil Wars and experimental Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell governed as Lord Protector followed by his son Richard. Cromwell’s Protectorate is usually imagined as a grey, joyless, military regime. But the reality was rather different. Cromwell presided over a colourful and fashionable court where music and the arts flourished, masques were revived and the first English operas performed. Too often the London of the 1650s is painted as puritanical and repressive in contrast to the vivid, fun-loving capital of the Restoration. Yet, under Cromwell, this was the city where the first coffee houses were opening, where a young Samuel Pepys was embarking on his career as a civil servant with the patronage of one of Cromwell’s councillors and where Christopher Wren was enjoying his new Chair of astronomy at Gresham College, appointed after the personal intervention of Cromwell. When Cromwell was invested as Lord Protector for the second time in 1657, the lavish ceremony in Westminster Hall and procession through London matched any previous coronation for pageantry with thousands lining the streets, bells ringing, bonfires blazing and free French wine flowing through the city. The gentleman in our portrait is Colonel William Helyar (1621-1698), Sheriff of Somerset and as a Royalist during the English Civil War. As one of the most prominent old families of the South-West, the Helyar’s family roots in Somerset can be traced back to 1616 when the Reverend William Helyar (1559-1645), chaplain to Elizabeth I, who was also a cousin by marriage, purchased the family residence Coker Court in East Coker, Somerset. He married a Devonshire heiress and several estates were bestowed on him as a result. He was a warm supporter of Charles I in the Civil War and was in residence at Exeter in 1643 when the Parliamentarians pillaged the cathedral. Elderly as he was, he boldly resisted them, but was beaten, pelted with mud, and locked up in a ship in the port and only let out on payment of £800. He retired to Coker where he died in 1645. His eldest son Henry died in 1634 and he was succeeded by his grandson, Colonel William Helyar, the sitter in our portrait. Colonel Helyar raised a troop of horse for King Charles I and was a colonel in the king's army. He was at Exeter when it was captured by the Parliamentary forces in 1646 and thus deemed ‘Traitor to the Parliament’. His estates were sequestered, but they were returned and he was discharged and pardoned on payment of £1,522. During the Restoration he was a Sheriff and he also helped James II repel the Monmouth Rebellion. The companion portrait represents the Colonel’s wife, Rachel Helyar (baptised 24th June 1633 at St Mary Aldermanbury, London – died 1678). She was the youngest daughter and co-heir of Sir Hugh Wyndham, 1st Baronet of Pilsdon Court and Mary Wyndham nee Alanson (Sir Hugh should not be confused with his first cousin once removed from Somerset, also Sir Hugh Wyndham (bef. 1604 - 1684). Rachel is a thirteenth generation descendant of King Henry III. The couple resided at the family seat of Coker Court (interestingly, within the churchyard, lie the remains of the poet T.S. Eliot who once wrote a poem about East Coker). A marriage settlement in extant shows that the couple were married in 1656; the portraits were most likely painted to mark this important event in the sitter’s lives. Rachel holds roses, the flower of love, and the putto pouring water is representative of her purity, and possibly, the plighting of troth. Colonel Helyar wears a gold wedding band. The couple had four sons: George, William (MP) (1662-1742), John, and Richard. Colonel Helyar died in December 1697 and was buried at Whitechurch, Dorset 2 Jan 1698. This period in which this portrait was painted was known as the Protectorate (1653-1659). This period offered relative peace, as the English Civil War ended in 1651. It was an interesting time for portraiture in England and Scotland – in between the great artistic geniuses and dominance of Van Dyke and Peter Lely. Much of the foreign-born artistic talent had fled England and Scotland during the Civil War and the artists that had remained were in great demand, in part due to the newly exposed strata of society wishing to be painted. Sitters on both sides were depicted in portraits in very similar ways. They are not, on the whole, shown as the Roundheads and Cavaliers of popular history. In fact, it is usually impossible to guess their political allegiances from the style of their portrait and their Parliamentarian and royalist iconographies, as portraits on both sides followed the same conventions and looked identical. Colonel Helyar has been depicted in armour and holding a Marshal’s baton of command, confirming his status. There is a great sense of realism and a particular delicacy, note the finely rendered hand resting on the rapier. Rachel is wearing a satin dress with expansive sleeves and a crimson drapery over her shoulder and held up by her left hand. She wears large pearl...

Titan Fine Art presents this portrait of a brave and chivalrous character. The gentleman has been depicted in armour, an elaborate full wig, and in accordance with the latest French fashion, an elaborate type of Venetian Gros point lace cravat and large silk bow (also called a cravat-string) – a type that were popular across Europe in the 1680’s. Point lace was fabulously expensive - a cravat was equivalent to six weeks income for a gentleman - and therefore indicative of a wearer's wealth and social class. A nobleman riding onto the battlefield would wear a lace cravat over his armour to demonstrate his status. The attire, along with the coat-of-arms, help to proclaim to every onlooker that the gentleman is a superior being. The depiction of the lace, apart from denoting the wealth of the sitter, was a deliberate way for the artist to demonstrate his own artistic ambition and technical skills Argent seasoned gule with three lozenges sable are those of the Crois family, who were minor nobility, originating from the Boulogne region in the north of France. The fact that the sitter is a high ranking noble excludes him as a member of the Crois family. As is so commonly the case, the coat of arms was a later addition, probably in the nineteenth century, by a family who sought to glorify their pedigree by adding their arms to the portrait. These arms are now an interesting part of the portraits history. The artist has captured a sense of the sitter’s character and the features of the sitter’s face have been rendered with great sensitivity. His confident gaze perhaps reflecting the near invincibility afforded by this steel suit. The work is a very good example of French portraiture from the period. Presented in an exquisite hand-carved and gilded seventeenth century frame - which is an exceptional work of art in itself. Pierre Mignard, known as le Romain, was a French painter of the court of the French King Louis XIV and was, with Charles Le Brun (1619-90), one of the most successful painters during the reign of Louis XIV. After training in Troyes, where he was born, and in Bourges, Mignard joined the studio of Simon Vouet in Paris in 1627. He went to Italy in 1636 and remained there until 1657. He studied the work of Correggio and Pietro da Cortona in Rome as well as copying Annibale Carracci's frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese. On Le Brun's death in 1690 he succeeded him as its Director and as First Painter to the King painting...

This portrait depicts an elegant, aristocratic women wearing a yellow silk dress with white chemise and a red mantle elegantly draped around her body. By tradition the portrait represents Mary Capel, Countess of Essex. Born Lady Mary Bentinck in 1679, she was the daughter of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an early stage the favourite of stadtholder William, Prince of Orange (the future King of England) and his wife Anne Villiers (died 1688). Lady Mary's maternal grandparents were Sir Edward Villiers and Lady Frances Howard...

Titan Fine Art present this accomplished work, from Kilcooley Abbey, Co Tipperary, Ireland. It portrays a gentleman traditionally known as the English military commander and politic...

The portrait genre was valued particularly highly in English society. Neither landscapes nor allegorical pictures were ever priced so highly at exhibitions and in the trade as depictions of people, from the highest aristocracy to scholars, writers, poets and statesmen. This charming portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, of a fashionable young gentleman and his faithful pet is an excellent example of 17th century child portraiture in England. There is a remarkable beauty and sensitivity to the portrait. The face, particularly well rendered, has captured the character of this young man – both charming and at the same time mischievous. Only the playful attention of a small dog suggests anything less than patrician dignity. Symbolism was important in portraiture and it provided a pointed and aspirational narrative that would not have been lost on contemporary viewers. For example, the presence of the dog, which was likely the boy’s pet, is at once a charming pictorial device and also a clear allusion to fidelity, trust and loyalty. The hairstyle and the attire, notably the type of cravat with the blue ribbon, help to date this portrait to between 1670 to 1685. Until the late eighteenth century children were dressed as adults - boys were dressed like men in breeches, vests, and coats between four and seven years of age. The expensive lace is an indication to his family’s wealth. Held in a good quality and condition antique gilded frame. Born in Suffolk, Mary Beale, nee Cradock (1633-1699) was employed by many of the most distinguished persons of her time including nobility, landed gentry, and clergymen. Technically accomplished, her paintings are noteworthy for their honest and sympathetic portrayal. In 1651 she married Charles Beale...