Islamic Drawings

Superbly executed in watercolor and ink, this charming and lovely depiction of Mother Goose nursery rhyme characters -- including Humpty Dumpty, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, The Three Little Pigs and Old King Cole -- was created by Maurice Greenberg...

Louis Sue & André Mare (1875-1968) - (1885-1932) Five sketches "Flowers circa 1930" Very rare watercolor on paper. Without frame: H 13" x W 17" ...

Culturally significant 18th Century Indo Persian manuscript hand painted in gouache depicting historical events. Presented under glass in a parcel g...

This pair of manuscript pages are 18th century and are done it water colour and gauche. The images are of people in landscapes and the colors are still...

This beautiful piece emerged from the graphic compendium Costumes civils, militaires et religieux, du Mexique civil, work of the renowned Italian artist Claudio Linati (1 February 1790 – 11 December 1832), written in French and printed in Brussels in 1828. This original and signed watercolor is the outcome of Linati’s artistic values and expert lithographic technique. In words of the author “I have chosen the most elegant gears, as well as the most bizarre, like the one on this plate, which may contrast by its severity with the alluring of the more feathery costume of the palencanas. (…) The basket carried by the woman is carefully made of woven cane. For a better characterization of the country, this young native female carries an anona, known among the Spaniards as pineapple due to its similarities with the pinecone”. This plate is the sole image of the style composition prevailing in Costumes civils, militaires et religieux, du Mexique civil consisting in precise details of costume and material culture, as can be recognized in the representation where even though the female figure is placed in the foreground, the focus of the image falls into gear: a blue checkered shawl and skirt.

Historical pair of 18th Century Indo Persian manuscripts hand decorated in gouache depicting cultural events. Presented under glass in gilt wood fra...

Inside of Church situated as St John’s Chester, Chancel (lower right). At lower left, "Painted by Aylesfod". Heneage Finch, 4th Earl of Aylesford, was a known watercolorist specializ...

An antique Megillah The Book of Esther, hand written on parchment by an expert Sephardi scribe and richly decorated with hand painted illustrations. The text panels are surrounded by...

A charming collection of eleven framed ink and watercolours of Indian birds on pink paper. Before framing, these were pencil signed c.1815 by a British army soldier. Measure: 29cm w...

This Mughal miniature was painted at one of the princely courts of India. It depicts a raven-haired princess in a gold-trimmed saffron-colored silk sari. Under a glowering evening sky she dawdles on a white marble terrace, with a pet fawn on a leash, before a landscape dotted with buildings nestled amongst trees beyond a river. Her hair, falling loosely about her shoulders, rather than carefully dressed on her head, indicates that she is a maiden. The overall mood is one of expectancy. Perhaps walking a pet and catching an evening breeze is a pretext to escape palace scrutiny for a lovers’ assignation. In Mughal India tender sentiments were a bridge to the erotic – and if this seems contradictory, so too is the balance of realism and caricature, and naturalism with the schematic. Both are hallmarks of miniatures painted in this place and time. The earliest Mughal Indian miniatures date to the 16th century. They were inspired by those painted at the refined Moslem courts of the neighboring Persian empire. They incorporated figures in spite of the Moslem faith’s proscription against depicting the human form. Such was the nature of sophisticated courtly life everywhere that beauty and pleasure trumped systems of morality. This was no less the case at the provincial Indian courts, where our miniature, marked by a charming pictorial naiveté, was most likely painted. Yet the artist was undeniably accomplished. His command of perspective, introduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, is seen in the landscape, which rolls back to a distant horizon, contrary to the flat two-dimensional ones following Indian-painting traditions. And if Mughal artists were influenced by Western art, the compliment was returned by Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others, who collected Indian miniatures (as did, perhaps, Giovanni Bellini who painted in Mughal style the famous miniature of a Persian man...

Rare very early watercolor by this famous 'Washington D.C. Colorist'(from the group of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Gene Davis), signed and dated L.L. 1958. Matted and framed in ...

A Orientalist watercolor picture of "A lady at the Bazaar" from the 19th century is a cacophony of colors and textures. The lady demurely lowers her gaze while sensuously caressing t...