Peter Harrison Fine Art Ltd

PROVENANCE Presumably commissioned by the sitter’s father-in-law, John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, Haynes Park, Thence by descent, Lady Louisa Carteret , who married Thomas Thynne,...

PROVENANCE Private Collection, England Colonel Charles William Garnde Walker (1882 - 1974) Thence by descent to; Sir Michael Walker (1916 - 2001) Thence by descent We are grateful t...

Justus Sustermans was first recorded working for the Medici in Florence in October 1621. He then worked continuously for the Grand Dukes until his death 60 years later in 1681. Suste...

PROVENANCE Charles Comte de Choiseul, Duke de Praslin, probably at Chateaux Vaux-Le-Vicomte; Private Collection, England; Christie’s, London, 22 April 1998...

Provenance The Sitter (Probably commissioned for the marriage of Samuel Edwin and Lady Catherine Montagu in 1697), Thence by descent, Charles Edwin (c. 1670 - 1716), Llanmihangel Pl...

Peters was born in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, the son of Matthew Peters (born at Belfast, 1711), a civil engineer and member of the Royal Dublin Society; by Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of George Younge of Dublin. The family moved from England to Dublin when Peters was young, where his father "advised on the improvement of loughs and rivers for navigation" and published two treatises on the subject. Peters received his artistic training from Robert West in Dublin; in 1756 and 1758 he received prizes from the first School of Design in Dublin. In 1759, he was sent by the Dublin Society to London to become a student of Thomas Hudson and won a premium from the Society of Arts. The group also paid for him to travel to Italy to study art from 1761 to 1765. On 23 September 1762 he was elected to the Accademia del Disegno in Florence. Peters returned to England in 1765 and exhibited works at the Society of Artists from 1766 to 1769. Beginning in 1769, Peters exhibited works at the Royal Academy. In 1771 he was elected an associate and in 1777 an academician. He returned to Italy in 1771 and stayed until 1775. He also probably traveled to Paris in 1783–84, where he met Léopold Boilly, Antoine Vestier, and was influenced by the work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze. On 27 February 1769, Peters became a freemason, and he was made the grand portrait painter of the Freemasons and the first provincial grand master of Lincolnshire in 1792. In 1785, he exhibited portraits of the Duke of Manchester...

Giulio Carpioni was most likely born in Venice in 1613 and trained under the artist Alessandro Varotari known as Il Padovanino. After travelling to Rome early in his career he sett...

Gabriel Revel was born in 1642 in the town of Chateau-Thierry in the province of Champagne. Although the name of his father is unknown, his profession was that of a ‘painter-glazer’ so the young Gabriel would no doubt have learnt the basic skills to become an artist in his father’s studio from an early age. Little is known of Revel’s early career however by 1671 he was working on the decorative schemes at Versailles and Gobelin under Charles le Brun, indicating his skill was great enough to be considered one of the finest artistic talents of the day. In 1683, Gabriel became a member of the Royal Academy after submitting his portraits of François Girardon and Michel Anguier. This success led to a number of commissions outside of Paris in the provinces, especially Dijon which he travelled to regularly until moving there permanently in 1692 after the death of Le Brun. Revel clearly took artistic influence from the fashions of the day using bold colours and fine detail to create highly decorative works. His Group Portrait, dated 1686 in the Portland Art Museum shows the central figure, much like the painting of Cleopatra in question, looking upwards wrapped in a rich blue drapery wearing jewel encrusted clothing. This type of decoration and composition would have had a base in Le Brun’s historical works and would almost certainly have been a style Revel developed whilst working on the decoration at Versailles. Whilst in Dijon, Gabriel painted virtually without competition and further circulated the style of historical painting popularized at Versailles by Le Brun. One of his most significant commissions in Dijon is the ceiling painting...