Titan Fine Art

A feature of this exquisitely rendered oil on panel portrait, presented by Titan FIne Art, is its remarkable seventeenth century carved auricular / Sunderland frame – a splendid and ...

This exquisite portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, is by Michael Dahl; it was part of the extensive collection owned by Thomas Wyndham of Clearwell Court in Gloucestershire. It ma...

The gentleman in this exquisite oil on canvas portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, is shown with the grandiloquence characteristic of the English School of painting. He is portray...

This exquisite oil on panel portrait, depicts a young lady wearing the most elaborate and costly items of the period - the Dutch coif or coronet of sheer lawn with lace, the lavishly...

This exquisite work, presented by Titan Fine Art, is by the notable artist Hans Hysing, who was a noteworthy painter in England; it is significant in its quality and its remarkable s...

Portrait of a Gentleman in Armour beside a Table with Helmut c.1685 Follower or circle of Johann Kerseboom (d.1708) This exquisite Grand Manner work, presented by Titan Fine Art, wa...

In this exquisite work, painted around the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666, a beautiful young woman is wearing a green dress over a white chemise and a russet-coloured scarf...

This exquisite Grand Manner work, presented by Titan Fine Art, is an evocative example of the type of portrait in vogue during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Beautifully ...

Portrait of Frances, Viscountess Scudamore in a Silver Dress and Blue Cloak c.1709-1719 By Charles Jervas (1675-1739) This elegant and graceful portrait, presented by Titan Fine Ar...

This elegant portrait, presented by Titan Fine Art, depicts a beautiful young lady seated in a wooded area, resting one arm on a rock, before a landscape and a warm evening sky. She is wearing a white smock under russet-coloured silks, loosely held in place by an immense black diamond clasp on the sleeve, and her body is enveloped in a voluptuous swag of azure silk; the costly fabrics and jewels reveal that the sitter was a paragon of a wealthy and privileged society that she belonged to. Much of the attractiveness of this portrait resides in its graceful composition and the beauty of the youthful sitter. The flowing water in the left margin of the picture and the shell that she holds are compositional devises often used at the time to allude to her potential as wife and mother, recalling Proverbs, Chapter 5, Verse 18: “Let thye fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of thye youth”. Symbolism was a key component to many works of this period and contemporary viewers would have deciphered them immediately. Such images exude a sense of status and Augustan decorum, and were highly influential in transmitting these values into the first half of the eighteenth century. Held in a good quality and condition gilded antique frame. Herman Verelst was from a great dynasty of painters, with many members achieving great success. Specialising in portraits and still life paintings, he was one of the legions of foreign-born artists working in England at the time. Today, many of his pictures are given to other artists or are simply relegated to that term “circle of” which is a great disservice because he had an ability to render faces and drapery on par with some of the best artists at the time. Herman’s work is quite distinctive in the way he rendered faces and this particular pose was a favourite. His faces were portrayed with great skill often using the sfumato technique which gave them a very smooth feel to the skin with no hard lines, and many known works by him show that he could also render drapery with great affect. Our painting was painted in the 1690’s. His father, Pieter Hermansz Verelst...

Titan Fine Art presents this exquisite oil on panel portrait depicting a handsome young gentleman in an exuberant black damask doublet. The pose, with one hand holding gloves and the other akimbo, was one that was well-established for gentleman of the upper echelons of society by the time this work was painted. The principle governing portraits at this time was the recording and defining in visual terms of the position of a sitter in society. In addition to brilliant and complex symbols of luxury, they often contained many symbolic elements too; the inclusion of gloves was often used in portraits that celebrated a betrothal as in ancient times gloves were used to seal a marriage contract. The extraordinary costume of a black shimmering doublet, the brilliant white reticella ruff, and the cuffs edged with lace were immensely costly… this attire proclaims to every onlooker that this is a superior being. The rendering of the reticella lace ruff is exquisite and the artist has recorded the design that runs through the black damask fabric with meticulous attention to detail. The preservation of this black pigment is remarkable considering the age of the work. Black pigments are especially vulnerable to fade and wear over time partly due to environmental condition but also from unprofessional cleaning. This work is an exquisite example from the period. According to the inscription in the upper right, the gentleman was in his 22nd year of age in 1624. The coat of arms, which is displayed without a crest, may be ‘blazoned’ in the language of heraldry, as: Sable on a Chevron between in chief two Roundels and in base a Billet [or possibly Square] Or three Martlets Sable. In plainer English this means a black (Sable) background, spanned by a gold (Or) chevron, above which are two golden solid circles (Roundels), and below which is a gold rectangle (Billet); on the chevron are three small black birds (Martlets). Martlets are a stylised form of heraldic bird, believed to be based on the swift, which are conventionally drawn with small tufts instead of feet. In Continental Europe it is also conventional for them to be drawn without beaks, as appears to be the case here. The birds in this instance also have a vaguely duck-like appearance. Five families have been identified with very close armorial bearings to the one in our portrait. They are the (van) Houthem’s (of Brabant), the Prévinaire’s (of Flanders and Holland), and the Proveneer’s (of Liège) and it must be noted that the locations of these families also fit with the painting’s Flemish origins. However the French Grenières’s (of Île-de-France) and the Jallot’s (of Normandy) are the next closest matches and plausible matches, as Frans Pourbus had settled in Paris just a few years before our portrait was painted. This painting has been assessed by a professional conservator prior to going on sale, and as thus, it can be hung and enjoyed immediately. Frans Pourbus the Younger...

This lavish portrait, painted circa 1695, is an exquisite example of the type of portrait in vogue during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. It is evident that the artist ...