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Portrait of Doctor Carter, Scottish 19th Century Signed Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
Oil on board, signed, titled and dated '1858' on verso
Image size: 10 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches (26.5 x 47 cm)
Gilt frame
This is a wonderful portrait that was painted by John Burr at a t...
Category
Late 19th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Portrait of a Trepanning Surgeon, Early 17th Century Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
Oil on oak panel, inscribed top left ‘AETATIS SUAE 32’
Image size: 27 x 35 inches (68.5 x 89 cm)
Contemporary style handmade frame
This is a portrait of a medical figure from the ea...
Category
Early 17th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oak, Oil
Portrait of a Peasant Girl, 19th Century English Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 15 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches (39.5 x 28.75 cm)
Original gilt frame
This is a touching head and shoulders portrait of a young peasant girl. Wearing a headscarf, a...
Category
19th Century English School Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Gentleman, 18th Century Oil Painting
By Anton von Maron
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 20 x 24 inches (51 x 61 cm)
Period gilt frame
This is a half-length portrait of a gentleman wearing a emerald coat and intricately designed waistcoat, dat...
Category
1760s Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Melancholic Gentleman, 17th century Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
English School
17th Century
Portrait of a Melancholic Gentleman
Oil on canvas
Image size: 25 x 29 1/4 inches (63.5 x 72.25 cm)
Hand made contemporary style frame
Provenance
South of England Estate
This is a striking 17th century half-portrait of a man. He sits with his body turned to the left and his head to the right. His left hand is held in front of him with thumb and finger together. He wears a loose white shirt that is opened low down onto chest while being closed at his neck with a black ribbon. An orange cloak has also been draped across his arms in a rather dramatic manner.
This choice of costume is immediately notable and must be compared to other portraits of this time of Elizabethan courtiers wearing slashed silk outfits with ostentatious finery and silver swords. Indeed, if one examines 17th century English...
Category
17th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of an Officer, Cornelius Johnson, 17th Century Old Masters
By Cornelius Johnson
Located in London, GB
Circle of Cornelius Johnson
Circa 1620’s
Portrait of a Officer
Oil on canvas
Image size: 28 x 24 inches
Period style hand made frame
Provenance
Private European Estate
This striking portrait dates to around 1620, as you can see from the images of the sash the detail is very high. The sash is decorated with gold thread and would have cost a small fortune at the time. Sashes were originally developed for a military function (making officers more visible for their men during combat), but soon became a primarily male fashion...
Category
Early 17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Mid 16th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
Oil on panel
Image size: 12 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches (31.75 x 22.25 cm)
Period style hand made frame
This is a portrait of Thomas Cranmer (1489 - 1556). Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VIII and launched the English Reformation. Few people have played so important a part in shaping the course of English history or had a more profound influence on England's language and literature than Thomas Cranmer.
At the bottom of the painting Cranmer's name and title is inscribed. At the centre there is also Cranmer's coat of arms, the left half is the arms that all archbishops of Canterbury adopt and it has been enjoin to his own family arms...
Category
16th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Panel
Portrait of John Hoppner
By Sir John Hoppner
Located in London, GB
After Sir John Hoppner
1758 - 1810
Self Portrait
Oil on canvas
Image size: 18 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches (47 x 55 cm)
Original gilt Carlotta frame
This wonderful painting is after John Ho...
Category
Mid-19th Century Naturalistic Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$6,576
Portrait of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch, Early 18th Century Oil Painting
By Dominicus van der Smissen
Located in London, GB
Dominicus van der Smissen
Early 18th Century
Portrait of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch
Oil on canvas
Image size: 20½ x 16¼ inches
Period gilt frame
This is a portrait of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch, composer, Kapellmeister and organist, whom Van der Smissen most probably portrayed during his stay in Hamburg, Brunswick or Amsterdam. The identification is based on the reproduction of the portrait which was engraved by Pieter Anthony Wakkerdak (1740- 1774).
Van der Smissen has reduced the face of the sitters to an egg-shaped oval in three-quarter view, applying diminution to one half of the figure’s torso, which is farther away from the viewer. This partial side view, with the head turned to look at the viewer over the shoulder, creates spatial depth and brings the figure to life by avoiding the stiffness of a frontal depiction.
Because the artist chose to highlight the figure from above, a distinct shadow is cast under the tip of the nose, in the shape of a triangle. This is an often recurring and almost ‘signature’-like feature in Van der Smissen’s oeuvre.
Hurlebusch's garments are of a very high quality and serve to reflect the sitter’s wealth, status and elegance. During this period, gentlemen often shaved their heads in order to facilitate the wearing of a wig, which wouldbe worn with a suit. Here Hurlebusch has been depicted in a luxurious turban-like cap lined with lynx fur, a highly fashionable and expensive material at the time.
Over his shirt, he wears a velvet fur-lined gown adorned with decorative clasps fashioned from silver braid. The elegant informality of his appearance can be seen in his unbuttoned shirt and the unfastened black ribbon hanging from his button hole, which has been artfully arranged into a fluttering drape by the portraitist.
The Sitter
Hurlebusch was born in Brunswick, Germany. He received the first instructions in his field from his father Heinrich Lorenz Hurlebusch, who was also a musician. As an organ virtuoso, he toured Europe, visiting Vienna, Munich and Italy.
From 1723 to 1725 he was Kapellmeister in Stockholm; later he became Kapellmeister in Bayreuth and Brunswick, and lived in Hamburg from 1727 to 1742, where he had contact with fellow composers Johann Mattheson and Georg Philipp Telemann. He made his living composing, performing and teaching.
In 1735 and 1736, he is believed to have visited Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, who promoted Hurlebusch’s compositions as the local seller...
Category
Early 18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
An Irish Rogue
Located in London, GB
Oil on board, signed and dated '44 lower right
Image size: 15 x 19 inches (38 x 48.25 cm)
Contemporary style hand made frame
This portrait of an unknown man certainly captures the personality of the chosen sitter. With hat tilted to the side, eyebrow lifted and a half smile of the man's face, one gets the impression that he is finding the whole process of having his portrait painted rather amusing.
Still in Ireland at this time, the sitter is likely to have been a friend of the artist, from Belfast.
In 1944 there was a group exhibition in Belfast held at the textile business of William Ewart & Sons on Bedford Street. Here Smith showed his works alongside the artists Colin Middleton...
Category
1940s Modern Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Portrait of a Girl with Book, 18th Century Regency Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 28 3/4 x 24 inches (73 x 61 cm)
Contemporary style gilt frame
This portrait is an evocative example of Devis' Regency period portraiture, featuring a pleasant looking young girl holding a book in an outdoor setting.
Working with a darker palette, a strongly accented diagonal recession, and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, Devis heightens the girl's three-dimensional physical presence in the foreground of the composition.
The Artist
Arthur William Devis (10 August 1762 – 11 February 1822) was an English painter of history paintings and portraits. He painted portraits and historical subjects, sixty-five of which he exhibited (1779–1821) at the Royal Academy. Among his more famous works are a depiction of the Death of Nelson and a posthumous portrait of Nelson.
Devis was born in London, the nineteenth child of the artist Arthur Devis and his wife Elizabeth Faulkner. Devis was the younger brother of the painter Thomas Anthony Devis (1757–1810) and of the schoolmistress and grammarian Ellin Devis (1746–1820), teacher, among others, of author of Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney (later novelist Madame d'Arblay).
He followed his elder brother Thomas Anthony in becoming a pupil at the Royal Academy Schools in 1774 and like his brother exhibited at the Free Society of Artists, of which in 1768 their father had become president, and at the Royal Academy. Early on he came to the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
He was appointed draughtsman on the British East India Company's packet Antelope in a voyage in 1783, under Captain Henry Wilson. In her he was injured in an encounter with Papuans near the Schouten Islands and was then wrecked on the Pelew Islands before proceeding to Canton and thence to Bengal. During his voyages, the artist received arrow wounds, one of which inflicted permanent injury on his lower jaw. During his time in Bengal, he painted a portrait of Sir William Jones, at the time a judge in Fort William. The painting now hangs at the British Library.
He was back in London by 1795 and is recorded on 21 July 1797 as living at 27 George Street, Hanover Square, where he was insured by the Sun Assurance Office.
He is noted for his involvement in the creation of the posthumous cult of Horatio Nelson. As she returned from Trafalgar, Devis went out to meet HMS Victory and was present on board the ship during the autopsy of Nelson's body conducted by Dr Beatty, the ship's surgeon. With the help of sketches he took at that time, he painted a heroic Death of Nelson, which proved a sensation.
Devis also painted Dr Beatty, and was commissioned by him to produce a half-length painting of Nelson as vice-admiral, which he lent to Emma Hamilton (who later lost it in an accident whilst travelling). Either the original or a copy of this portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy two years after the Battle and many copies were made of it. Lord Howe owned one, and another ended up in the collection of the National Maritime Museum. It also appeared as an engraving in Beatty's published account of Nelson's death.
Other work includes a portrait of King George III on horseback, and a range of portraits of admirals and generals, along with historical subjects, such as the Babington Plot and the signing of the Magna Carta...
Category
18th Century Victorian Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Self Portrait, 19th Century Pre-Raphaelite Oil Painting
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 9 1/4 x 7 inches (23.5 x 18 cm)
Original pierced gilt frame
This wonderful Pre-Raphaelite self-portrait contributes to the artistic tradition of representi...
Category
19th Century Pre-Raphaelite Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Head Study
Located in London, GB
Joseph-Auguste Rousselin
French 1841 - 1916
Head Study
Oil on board, signed with initials and signed verso
Image size: 12 x 11 inches
This head study provides an unbelievably moving portrait of an androgynous sitter. Employing incredible technique, the artist has achieved the highly finished porcelain skin, thoughtful eyes and pink lips of the sitter with incredible softness.
The unfinished quality of the background make the composition of the work particularly satisfying to the modern eye. Loosely sketched dashes and brushy swoops outline the model's head. The mix of finished and more expressive elements reveals the artist's brilliant eye, technique and personality.
Artistically, Rousselin does not seem to be influenced by the friendships that he forged with the Impressionists but rather he has remained rather faithful to the academic technique of William Bouguereau, whose studio he also used to frequent.
This study is certainly comparable to the work by Bouguereau, specifically his graceful portraits of women. Bouguereau championed the traditional academic style and his methods were taught to him by a pupil of Ingres. Similar academic inspiration is apparent in this work, from the conscious posing of the subject to the evenly laid colours. Indeed, alike the work of Bouguereau this follows the same classical approach to composition, form and subject matter.
The Artist
Born in Paris in 1841, Rousselin grew up to be a French painter and art collector. From a young age he studied in the workshops of Charles Gleyre and Thomas Couture, here he met the young impressionist generation. His studio peers included Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Édouard Manet, with whom he forged strong bonds of friendship. It was at his invitation that his two friends Renoir and Sisley exhibited at the Salon of the Society of Friends of the Arts in Pau, a region where Rousselin had family ties.
Manet invited him to his family home in Boulogne-sur-Mer where he had him pose in the summer of 1868 for 'Le Déjeuner dans l'Atelie'. Rousselin can be seen in the background of the painting as the man with the cigar, wearing a grey hat...
Category
Mid-19th Century Romantic Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Self Portrait
By Gerald Goddard Jackson
Located in London, GB
Gerald Goddard Jackson
1878-1941
Self Portrait
Oil on canvas
Image size: 23½ x 19½ inches
Original frame
Jackson was born at Duddington, Northamptonshire on 5 March 1878. He enrolled at the Slade School of Art in 1893 where he studied alongside fellow students Wyndham Lewis, Orpen, Gertler, Nash and Nevinson. He left the Slade in 1899 in order to travel to Canada, USA and Mexico, spending three years in Italy.
In 1911, he joined the Army. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, his battalion was sent to France. He was captured in 1916 and was held at various German prisoner of war camps, largely at Schwarmstedt in Saxony. Whilst in captivity he befriended the poet Frederick William Harvey...
Category
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Lady in a Black Bonnet
By Arthur Ambrose McEvoy
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 30 3/4 x 26 1/8 inches (78 x 66.5 cm)
Handmade contemporary style frame
Provenance
Collection of David Sellin, Washington, D.C. Sellin was an American art ...
Category
Early 20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Gentleman
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas
Image size: 17 x 23 1/2 inches (43 x 60 cm)
Contemporary William Kent hand made frame
Category
18th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Una
Located in London, GB
Richard Waller
1811 - 1882
Una
Oil on canvas, signed lower right and dated 1879
Image size: 23 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches (59.5 x 49.5 cm)
Original frame
Una is one of the main characters in the first book of Edmund Spenser...
Category
19th Century Victorian Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$7,398
The Distraction, Late 19th Century Oil Painting, Orientalist
Located in London, GB
Walter Charles Horsley
1855 – 1921
The Distraction
Oil on canvas, signed lower left
Image size: 25 x 20 1/2 inches (63.5 x 52 cm)
Orientalist ha...
Category
Late 19th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of Miss Tonks, Signed and dated 19th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right 1882
Image size: 36 x 29 inches (92 x 74 cm)
Gilt Watts frame
LITERATURE
The Life and Work of Frank Holl, Ada ...
Category
19th Century Victorian Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of Ralph William Grey
By Bartholomew Dandridge
Located in London, GB
Provenance
By descent through the sitter's family to
The Collection of R. W. Vivian-Neal of Poundisford Park, Somerset, from whom acquired by
With Lane Fine Art, UK, where purchased by the present owners in 1996
Literature
'Poundisford Park, Somerset' in Country Life, 22 December 1934, ill.
A.W. and C.M. Vivian-Neal, Poundisford Park, Somerset: A catalogue of pictures and furniture, Taunton 1939, cat. nos. 11 and 13
This is a three-quarter-length portrait of Ralph William Grey in a mole-coloured velvet coat and a long waistcoat of green satin, heavily embroidered in gold. Under his left right hand is a black chapeau bras. He has white doe-skin gauntlet gloves.
Son of William and Ann Grey of Backworth: born 19 December 1707. He married Mary the daughter of William Rawstorne of Newall in 1741 and died 5 November 1786. He was educated at Eaton and Trinity College, Oxford.
Within a year of his birth Mrs Grey died and, according to the Country Life article 'From that time forward all Mr Grey's faculties were concentrated on the well-being of his son. The possession of an heir gave zest to his efforts to build up the family fortune: he was successful in most of his ventures. Years later his interest in life was centred in the home of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren'.
Grey's right hand is depicted in the present portrait resting on Locke's Essays and the Country Life article also records that there are constant references to John Locke...
Category
Mid-18th Century English School Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of Ann Austen, nee Grey
By Bartholomew Dandridge
Located in London, GB
Signed 'BDandridge/ pinxit' lower left
Provenance
By descent through the sitter's family to
The Collection of R. W. Vivian-Neal of Poundisford Park, Somerset, from whom acquired by
With Lane Fine Art, UK, where purchased by the present owners in 1996
Literature
'Poundisford Park, Somerset' in Country Life, 22 December 1934, ill.
A.W. and C.M. Vivian-Neal, Poundisford Park, Somerset: A catalogue of pictures and furniture, Taunton 1939, cat. nos. 11 and 13
This is a portrait of Ann Austen, nee Grey, three-quarter-length seated in a landscape with her dog. Painted in a superb white satin dress, she holds horn spectacles and a spectacle case...
Category
Mid-18th Century English School Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
A Young Lady
By William Edward Frost
Located in London, GB
Oil on board
Image size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (14 x 11.5 cm)
Original 19th century oval mount and frame
Provenance;
With Richard Naworth, Blackburn
William Edward Frost (September 1810 – 4 June 1877) was an English painter of the Victorian era. Virtually alone among English artists in the middle Victorian period, he devoted his practice to the portrayal of the female nude. Specialising in portraiture from about 1830, Frost painted more than 300 portraits during a 15-year period, and showed some as his first exhibits from 1836.
William Edward Frost was born in Wandsworth, then in Surrey, in September 1810. He showed artistic talent from an early age, and was encouraged in this by his father: first by his arranging drawing lessons with a Miss Evatt, a neighbouring amateur, and then, in 1825, by his introducing him to William Etty, who became his mentor. On Etty’s recommendation, he entered Henry Sass’s School for Drawing and Painting at 6 Charlotte Street, in 1826, and spent three years there, while also studying at the British Museum each winter.
Frost was educated in the schools of the Royal Academy, beginning in 1829; he established a reputation as a portrait painter before branching into historical and mythological subjects, including the subgenre of fairy painting...
Category
19th Century English School Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Portrait of a Woman in Blue Original Oil Painting Modern British
By Lionel Ellis
Located in London, GB
Lionel Ellis
1903 - 1988
Portrait of a Woman in Blue
Oil on canvas
Image size: 16 x 13 3/4 (40.5 x 35 cm)
Lionel Ellis ARCA (1903-1988) was an important ...
Category
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Sleeping Woman Original Oil Painting Modern British
By Lionel Ellis
Located in London, GB
Lionel Ellis
1903 - 1988
Portrait of a Sleeping Woman
Oil on canvas
Image size: 14 x 18 inches (35.5 x 45.5cm)
Framed
Lionel Ellis ARCA (1903-1988) was a...
Category
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Self Portrait. Original Oil Painting Austrian 19th Century
Located in London, GB
Joseph Weidner
Austrian 1801 - 1870
Self Portrait
Oil on canvas, signed lower left
Image size: 23 x 19 inches (58.5 x 48.5 cm)
Original gilt swept fra...
Category
1860s Vienna Secession Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of a Young Man - 17th Century Portrait in Oil
By Pieter Harmensz Verelst
Located in London, GB
Circle of Pieter Harmensz Verelst
1618 - 1678
Portrait of a Young Man
Oil on oak panel
Image size: 7 ½ x 5 ¾ inches
Dutch ripple frame
Category
18th Century and Earlier Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Panel
Portrait of a Girl, 18th Century Oil Old Master
By George Knapton
Located in London, GB
George Knapton
1698-1778
Portrait of a Girl
Oil on canvas
Image size: 20 x 18 inches
Original giltwood frame
This beautiful half length portrait of a young woman, turned to left, gazing at the spectator, wearing a pink, white lace-embroidered, dress, in her hair a pink bonnet trimmed with lace to match her dress.
The depiction of a young girl epitomises child portraiture of the late eighteenth century, in which painters such as William Beechey, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough had begun to discover and express the true character of children, in contrast to the stiff, miniature-adults of previous generations.
The Artist
Knapton was born in Lymington, one of four sons of James Knapton. He was apprenticed to Jonathan Richardson from 1715 to 1722, and in 1720 was a founding subscriber to the academy of St. Martin's Lane established by Louis Chéron...
Category
18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Gentleman Commoner at Oxford, 18th Century Oil on Canvas
By James Northcote b.1746
Located in London, GB
James Northcote
Portrait of a Gentleman Commoner at Oxford
Oil on canvas
Image size: 30 x 25 inches (76 x 63.5 cm)
Original gilt frame
This painting is a comparatively rare example ...
Category
18th Century English School Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of William Russell, Lord Russell, Oil on Canvas
By Sir Godfrey Kneller
Located in London, GB
Style of Sir Godfrey Kneller
1646 - 1723
Portrait of William Russell, Lord Russell
Oil on canvas
Image size: 12 x 11 inches (30 x 28 cm)
In a period carved gilt frame
Category
18th Century and Earlier Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Boy in a Black Tunic - Early 17th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
Flemish School, Early 17th Century
Portrait of a Boy in a Black Tunic
Oil on panel
Image size: 15¾ x 13⅛ inches
This accomplished portrait of an unknown boy in his early teens was p...
Category
17th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Panel
Study of the Violinist for Holy Motherhood, pre-raphaelite, newlyn school, Oil
By Thomas Cooper Gotch
Located in London, GB
Thomas Cooper Gotch
1854 – 1931
Study of Violinist for Holy Motherhood
Oil on canvas, on board
Image size: 28 ¾ x 21 inches
18th century frame
Illustrated in "The Golden Dream, A bi...
Category
Early 1900s Aesthetic Movement Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of a Mary Hardy (nee Sulman), Late 19th Century Victorian Oil
Located in London, GB
Slade School
Late 19th Century
Portrait of a Mary Hardy (nee Sulman)
Oil on panel
Image size: 8 x 7 inches
Contemporary frame
Provenance
Lady Town (Grandda...
Category
Late 19th Century Victorian Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Panel
Self-Portrait - Royal Academy Founding Member, 18th Century
By Francis Hayman
Located in London, GB
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...
Category
18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oak, Oil Pastel
Portrait of Mrs Faber, 18th Century Oil Painting
By Thomas Hudson
Located in London, GB
THOMAS HUDSON
1701 – 1779
Portrait of Mrs Faber
Oil on canvas
Image size: 29 x 24 ½ inches
Contemporary gilt frame
Mrs Faber was the wife of John Faber J...
Category
18th Century and Earlier Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a King's Messenger, 18th Century English Artist, Original Frame
By Charles Philips
Located in London, GB
Charles Philips
1703 - 1747
Portrait of a King's Messenger
Oil on canvas
Image size: 35 ¾ x 28 inches
Original gilt frame
King's Messenger
The job of a King's Messenger was that of a diplomatic courier, hand-carrying important and secret documents around the world. Some say that the history of the sovereigns' messengers goes back to 1199, but the first known messenger was John Norman, who in 1485 earned 4d (1½ pence) per day for carrying the state papers of Richard III.
The silver greyhound on the messenger's badge dates back to Charles II. In 1660, during his exile at Breda, Netherlands, Charles II issued a declaration of amnesty to all those who had opposed him and his father. He used messengers to make his intentions known. In answer to the messenger's question "How will they know me?", Charles reached forward to a silver bowl on the table in front of him. This bowl, with four decorative greyhounds standing proud above the rim, was well known to all courtiers. Charles broke off a greyhound and gave it to the messenger as a guarantee that the message came from him. From that date, the King's Messenger always wore a silver greyhound around his neck.
Later, dating from George II or III, a badge with the Royal Arms in enamel, with the greyhound suspended beneath, was worn. A George III example of the King's Messenger Badge, pre 1800, sold for over £30,000 pounds some years ago.
The silver greyhounds were minted for each new reign, except the brief one of King Edward VIII. The sovereign's messengers were originally controlled by the Lord Chamberlain, being Messengers of the Great Chamber. When the Foreign Office was created in 1782, the messengers remained common to the three Secretaries of State.
Charles Philips was an English artist known for painting a number of portraits and conversation pieces for noble and Royal patrons in the mid-eighteenth century.
Philips was baptised in the combined parish of St Mildred, Poultry with St Mary...
Category
18th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Self Portrait, Mid-20th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
Sheila Holland
1932-2002
Self Portrait
Oil on canvas, signed lower right
Image size: 30 x 22 inches
This is a wonderfully dynamic self portrait by the female artist Shelia Holland. ...
Category
Mid-20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Steam Room 4, 20th Century Contemporary Acrylic
By Graham Dean
Located in London, GB
Graham Dean
1980
Steam Room 4
Acrylic on canvas
Image size: 14 x 10 inches
In keeping with Dean's passion for experiencing the subjects of his work, this ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Acrylic
Portrait of a Young Girl, Polish Late 19th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
Szymon Buchbinder
1853 - 1908
Portrait of a Young Girl
Oil on canvas
Image size: 19 x 13 inches
Original frameSimon Buchbinder (1853-1908) was a Polish painter. Most of his works we...
Category
Late 19th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Girl in a Green Scarf, 20th Century Oil Portrait
Located in London, GB
A.M. Coates
20th Century
Girl in a Green Scarf
Oil on canvas
Image size: 14 x 10 inches
Category
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Girl, British School 20th Century Oil
Located in London, GB
British School
20th Century
Oil on canvas
Image size: 12 x 8 inches
Framed
Category
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of a Lady, Old Masters 18th Century Oil
By Thomas Hudson
Located in London, GB
Thomas Hudson
1701 – 1779
Portrait of a Lady
Oil on canvas
Image size: 30 x 25 inches
Original carved giltwood frame
Hudson had many assistants, and employed the specialist drapery ...
Category
18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of a Gentleman, 17th Century Dutch Old Masters Oil
Located in London, GB
Circle of Gerard van Honthorst
1592 - 1656
Portrait of a Gentleman
Oil on wooden panel
Image size: 29 x 23 inches
Contemporary gilt frame
Gerard van Honthorst was a Dutch Golden Age...
Category
17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Portrait of a Girl, 17th Century English School Old Masters Oil
By Gilbert Jackson
Located in London, GB
Gilbert Jackson
English Active: 1620 - 1650
Portrait of a Girl
Oil on panel, signed upper left and Inscribed upper right
Image size: 24 ½ x 20 inches
Contemporary style hand made...
Category
17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil
Portrait of a Man, 17th Century Dutch Oil on Panel Portrait
By Cornelis Dusart
Located in London, GB
Circle of Cornelis Dusart
Dutch 1660 - 1704
Portrait of a Man
Oil on panel
Image size: 7¾ x 5¼ inches
Giltwood frame
Cornelis Dusart
Cornelis ...
Category
17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Panel
Portrait of a Gentleman, 17th Century English Oil on Canvas
By (Circle of) Mary Beale
Located in London, GB
Circle of Mary Beale
1633 - 1699
Portrait of a Gentleman
Oil on canvas
Image size: 30 x 25 inches
Contemporary gilt frame
Mary Beale was the daughter of a Suffolk clergyman.She married Charles Beale...
Category
17th Century Portrait Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Early 17th Century Portrait
Located in London, GB
English School, (circa 1600)
Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
Oil on panel, oval
Image size: 29¼ x 23⅞ inches
Painted wooden frame
Provenance:
176, Collection of Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick.
The Trustees of the Lord Brooks’ Settlement, (removed from Warwick Castle).
Sotheby’s, London, 22nd March 1968, lot 81.
Painted onto wooden panel, this portrait shows a dark haired gentleman in profile sporting an open white shirt. On top of this garments is a richly detailed black cloak, decorated with gold thread and lined with a sumptuous crimson lining. With the red silk inside it’s all very expensive and would fall under sumptuary laws – so this is a nobleman of high degree.
It’s melancholic air conforms to the contemporary popularity of this very human condition, evident in fashionable poetry and music of the period. In comparison to our own modern prejudices, melancholy was associated with creativity in this period.
This portrait appeared in the earliest described list of pictures of Warwick castle dating to 1762. Compiled by collector and antiquary Sir William Musgrave ‘taken from the information of Lord & Lady Warwick’ (Add. MSS, 5726 fol. 3) is described;
‘8. Earl of Essex – an original by Zuccharo – seen in profile with black hair. Holding a black robe across his breast with his right hand.’
As tempting as it is to imagine that this is a portrait of Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl Essex, we might take this with a pinch of salt. Its identification with this romantic and fatal Elizabethan might well have been an attempt to add romance to Warwick Castle’s walls. It doesn’t correspond all that well with Essex’s portraits around 1600 after his return from Cadiz. Notably, this picture was presumably hung not too far away from the castle’s two portraits of Queen Elizabeth I. The first, and undoubtedly the best, being the exquisite coronation portrait that was sold by Lord Brooke in the late 1970s and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The second, described as being ‘a copy from the original at Ld Hydes’, has yet to resurface.
The portrait eventually ended up being hung in the State Bedroom of Warwick Castle.
Archival documents present one other interesting candidate. The Greville family’s earliest inventory of paintings, made in 1630 at their home Brooke House in Holborn, London, describes five portraits of identified figures. All five belonged to the courtier, politician and poet Sir Fulke Greville (1554-1628), 1st Baron Brooke, and were hung in the ‘Gallerie’ of Brooke House behind yellow curtains. One of them was described as being of ‘Lord of Pembrooke’, which is likely to have been William Herbert (1580-1630), 3rd Earl of Pembroke. William was the eldest son of Greville’s best friend’s sister Mary Sidney, and was brought up in the particularly literary and poetically orientated household which his mother had supported. Notably, the 3rd Earl was one of the figures that Shakespeare’s first folio was dedicated to in 1623.
The melancholic air to the portrait corresponds to William’s own pretensions as a learned and poetic figure. The richness of the robe in the painting, sporting golden thread and a spotted black fabric, is indicative of wealth beyond that of a simple poet or actor. The portrait’s dating to around the year 1600 might have coincided with William’s father death and his own rise to the Pembroke Earldom. This period of his life too was imbued with personal sadness, as an illicit affair with a Mary Fitton had resulted in a pregnancy and eventual banishment by Elizabeth I to Wilton after a short spell in Fleet Prison. His illegitimate son died shortly after being born. Despite being a close follower of the Earl of Essex, William had side-stepped supporting Devereux in the fatal uprising against the Queen and eventually regained favour at the court of the next monarch James I.
His linen shirt is edged with a delicate border of lace and his black cloak is lined on the inside with sumptuous scarlet and richly decorated on the outside with gold braid and a pattern of embroidered black spots.
Despite the richness of his clothes, William Herbert has been presented in a dishevelled state of semi-undress, his shirt unlaced far down his chest with the ties lying limply over his hand, indicating that he is in a state of distracted detachment. It has been suggested that the fashion for melancholy was rooted in an increase in self-consciousness and introspective reflection during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
In contemporary literature melancholy was said to be caused by a plenitude of the melancholy humor, one of the four vital humors, which were thought to regulate the functions of the body. An abundance of the melancholia humor was associated with a heightened creativity and intellectual ability and hence melancholy was linked to the notion of genius, as reflected in the work of the Oxford scholar Robert Burton, who in his work ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’, described the Malcontent as ‘of all others [the]… most witty, [who] causeth many times divine ravishment, and a kind of enthusiamus… which stirreth them up to be excellent Philosophers, Poets and Prophets.’ (R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, London, 1621 in R. Strong, ‘Elizabethan Malady: Melancholy in Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraits’, Apollo, LXXIX, 1964).
Melancholy was viewed as a highly fashionable affliction under Elizabeth I, and her successor James I, and a dejected demeanour was adopted by wealthy young men, often presenting themselves as scholars or despondent lovers, as reflected in the portraiture and literature from this period. Although the sitter in this portrait is, as yet, unidentified, it seems probable that he was a nobleman with literary or artistic ambitions, following in the same vain as such famous figures as the aristocratic poet and dramatist, Edward de Vere...
Category
Early 17th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Reflections, American 20th Century Oil Painting
By Philip Campbell Curtis
Located in London, GB
Philip Campbell Curtis
American 1907 - 2000
Reflections
Oil on board, signed and dated 1960
Image size: 12 ½ x 5 ½ inches
Original frame
Category
1960s Surrealist Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil