United Kingdom - Portrait Paintings

'The Bather', oil on board, by Charles Kvapil (1934). The world of art has for centuries depicted bathers in one form or another. Kvapil's wonderfully allur...

George Romney (1734-1802) Portrait of a Gentleman, traditionally identified as Edward Addison, Esq., c.1780s Oil on canvas In a period carved and gilded swept frame 76.3 x 63.2 cm.; ...

Portrait believed to be of Ambroise Vollard by Adolphe GUMERY (1861-1943) oil painting on canvas stuck on board, unframed faintly signed & dated 1883 board: 10 x 8.5 inches condition...

Portrait of a Young Aristocrat French School, circa 1800's circle of Louis Leopold Boilly (1761-1845) oil painting on canvas, framed canvas: 16 x 13.5 inches frame: 21 x 18 inches p...

The Trial of Christ Dutch Old Master, 17th century oil on panel, unframed panel: 11 x 7.5 inches provenance: private collection, England, Christies auction stencil marks verso condi...

Portrait of a Gentleman in Formal Attire French School, 19th century oil on board, framed framed: 17 x 14 inches board : 13 x 10.5 inches Provenance: private collection, Paris, Franc...

Male Portrait, oil on board. Unsigned. Presented in a decorative gilt effect frame with painted cove. (Provenance: Studio Sale, George Weissbort).

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 stunning British 18th century Old Master portrait oil painting, with exceptional provenance, is by noted artist George Romney. It was painted in 1788, commissioned by James Evelyn of Felbridge as it is of his younger daughter Anne, aged 20 years old. James was a Doctor of Law and Anne's mother was his second wife, Jane. Felbridge house, Anne's home, was in the village of Godstone in Surrey. This superb oil painting is a seated portrait of Anne, wearing a white dress with a green sash, her forearms exposed and her hands in her lap. Anne is blessed with the most wonderful long auburn curly hair and is visually stunning. Her body is partly turned away from the artist/viewer and she is slightly gazing down at us with confident, clear eyes. Anne is pictured in a landscape with a dramatic sky behind her. Romney's brushwork on her dress, hair and the background is superb. The delicate detailing of her facial features is also stunning. Sometimes Old Master portraits can be a little staid, but this one of Anne with her wild auburn hair and bold look is just magnificent. This is a fantastic example of George Romney's work and of an 18th century British Old Master with exceptional detailed provenance. Name plate states: Anne, younger daughter of James Evelyn of Fellbridge Esq. 1788, aged 20. Romney. Provenance. With Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool (1784-1851) With The Hon. Henry Berkeley Portman (1860-1923), Later 3rd Viscount Portman; with Emma, Viscountess Portman (1862-1929) By 1926; with her daughter Lady Moyra Dawson-Damer (1897-1962) Thence by family descent. Painted in 1788. There are various labels verso. Mentioned in Lord Hawkesbury's Catalogues of Portraits at Compton Place and at Buxted Park, in Sussex, 1903, p.18, no. 3, at Buxted Park, as in the 'Dining Room, South Wall'. Further Bibliography: Gower (R. S.) Romney, London, 1904, p. 175 Kidson (Alex) George Romney, A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015, I, p. 205, no. 422 (illus).Ward (Humphrey) and Roberts (William) Romney: A Biographical and Critical Essay, London: T Agnew & Sons, 1904, p. 51 Condition. Oil on canvas. Image size 30 inches by 24 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in an ornate gilt frame with name plate, 37 inches by 31 inches and in good condition. George Romney (1734-1802) was born in Dalton-on-Furness, Lancashire, on 15 December 1734, the third of the eleven children of John Romney and Anne Simpson. Leaving school at the age of eleven, he worked for eight years in his father's cabinetmaking workshop before being apprenticed to a local painter, Christopher Steele, with whom he served for two years, from 1755 to 1757, in Kendal, York, and Lancaster. He married a Kendal girl, Mary Abbot...

Portrait of a Gentleman French School, mid 19th century signed to the letter and dated oil on canvas, framed framed: 36 x 28 inches canvas: 29 x 20 inches Provenance: private collect...

This charming mid-19th-century oil painting attributed to English artist Edward John Cobbett (1815-1899) depicts a seated girl carrying a wicker basket within rolling scenery. Cobbett was a skilled English painter of landscapes and genre who exhibited regularly at London’s Royal Academy. This piece from around 1860 is emblematic of his rose-tinted escapism and celebrates the honest endeavours of rural life. The details are rendered skilfully, particularly the hands, skin tones and head. While the composition, with the horizon line crossing just beneath the shoulders, creates interest and permanence. He fathered twelve children, including eight daughters, so it’s plausible that some of them appeared in his portraits. The girl bears some resemblance to his depiction of ‘The Crofter's Daughter’. Born in Westminster, London, Cobbett was initially trained as a wood carver, probably by his father, who was a skilled ‘carver and gilder’. Evidently, the young man adopted the trade with considerable vigour, as some of his early carvings can be seen at York Minster. Around the age of 20, he began to pursue a career as an artist, and it's presumably at this point that he undertook formal tuition with the landscape painter Joseph William Allen (1803-1852). Allen was a founding member of the Society of British Artists, and his influence is evident. Following his 1833 debut at London’s Royal Academy, he matured into an artist of considerable merit, particularly popular among the rising middle classes. He was known by the Victorian press as one of the last great ‘bohemians’, thus associating him with a social and cultural milieu of freedom-loving, anti-establishment creatives. As a member of London’s Savage Club, his circle was a most intriguing one and included writers, artists, and musicians who sought to live on the fringes of society. This liberal sense of ‘joie de vivre’ translated through his work into depictions of ebullient country folk undertaking wholesome daily activities. Via his numerous rustic characters, he celebrated a simpler, albeit idealised, working-class utopia. The urban-dwelling bourgeois lapped it up, escaping into the abundance of an imagined moor, and vanishing into a community unplagued by formal rigour. Aside from the Royal Academy, his works were also shown at the British Institution, Liverpool Academy, and the Society of British Artists, where he was elected a member in 1856. He’s known to have collaborated with both William Shayer (1787-1879) and George Cole (1810-1883). He’s represented in numerous public collections, including at Glasgow Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Worcester City Art Gallery, and York Art Gallery. Provenance: Private collection, UK. Artist’s auction maximum: £20,052 for ‘Rural Idyll (1859)’, Oil on canvas, De Veres...

Portrait of a Gentleman with Blue Cloak and Portrait of a Lady in Russet Dress c.1697 Thomas Murray (1663-1735) These fascinating portraits are exquisite examples of portraiture in ...

‘Melancholic Sappho’ by Arthur Hill RBA (1841-1908). The painting – which depicts the celebrated poet of Ancient Greece appealing to the Goddess Aphrodite, with the Parthenon on the...

"Florentine Expressions: A Portrait Series XVI", acrylic on canvas, mounted on board, Florentine School (circa 1980s-90s). This gallery has acquired a number of paintings through an ...

A beautiful large 1930's French post-impressionist oil on canvas nude portrait of a lady in the artist's studio, by Bertrand Py. Excellent quality and very good condition portrait ...

The sitter, seated in a yellow silk gown trimmed with a pink bow playing the cello, is believed to be the artist Balthazar Denner's eldest daughter Catharina (1715-1744), after his marriage to Esther Winter in Hamburg in 1712. She is also recognisable in another portrait of the Denner family in the Hamburg Kunsthalle, painted circa 1740 by the artist's son, Jacob Denner (1722-1765). Oil on canvas in a period giltwood frame. Provenance: Private collection, Northern Germany Professor Helmut Borsch-Supan, Berlin, confirmed the authenticity of the painting after examining it in 2013. The painting will also be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonnée of the artist, by Ute Mannhardt. Balthasar Denner...

Miss Ada Gossett, circa 1673, half-length in a landscape at dusk, wearing an amber silk gown adorned with a gold trimmed gauze shawl and fine jewels, wearing a pearl necklace, her fa...

This lovely British Modernist portrait oil painting is by noted artist Lionel Ellis. The painting comes from a collection of works by the artist, previously owned by his wife. Painte...

The English Gentleman and his Country House English artist, circa 1800-1820 period Fine Georgian period portrait of a young English gentleman, seated with distant view of his country...

Artist/ School: French School, 18th century Title: Mary and Jesus Medium: oil on canvas, framed Framed: 17 x 14.5 inches Canvas: 16 x 12.75 inches Provenance: private collection...

Portrait Of A Circassian Guerilla, 19th Century Russian School Large 19th Century Russian School portrait of a Circassian Guerilla, oil on canvas. Remarkable quality and historica...

Unsigned. On board.

Portrait of a Red Setter/Spaniel English school, mid 20th century oil on canvas, unframed Canvas: 14 x 12 inches Provenance: private collection Condition: stretcher bar marks showing...

Sleep, Huge French Abstract Portrait, Original Oil Painting Signed By French artist Elisabeth Dujarric, b.1930-2005 Dated '1962' verso Oil painting on canvas, unframed Canvas size: 43.5 x 18 inches Elisabeth Dujarric de la Rivière...

"Florentine Expressions: A Portrait Series XIX", oil on board, Florentine School (circa 1980s-90s). This gallery has acquired a number of paintings through an intermediary of an agei...

PORTRAIT OF A TROUBLED SOUL Size: 65.5 x 54 cm (including frame) Oil on Canvas This mid-century expressive and emotive oil portrait delves into the depths of the human psyche with a...

Artist/ School: Anglo/ American School, early 19th century. Title: Full length portrait of a seated young gentleman wearing a dark suit, cream waistc...

Portrait of a Child European School, early 20th century oil on canvas, framed frame: 21 x 18 inches canvas: 15 x 12 inches provenance: private collection, England condition: extensiv...

Ladies Dancing by Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) ink/watercolour/pencil drawing on card, unframed paper: 13 x 10 inches stamped verso very good condition provenance: from the artists estate, France Josine Vignon (1922-2022) was a French artist living on the Rue Beautreillis in the Marais district of Paris. She painted with a beautiful style, largely influenced by the Impressionist and Post...

Claude Benard (1926-2016, French), signed Portrait of a Fashionable Young Lady oil painting on canvas, unframed, signed upper corner painting: 32 x 24 inches provenance: the artists ...

English artists, circa 1870 oil painting on canvas, framed framed: 36 x 31 inches canvas : 30 x 25 inches provenance: private collection, England condition: overall very good and pr...

A rare pair of three-quarter length 'marriage' portraits by one of the foremost dutch portrait painters of the 17th century, Nicolaes Maes (Dordrecht 1634-1693 Amsterdam). The gentleman signed middle left 'Maes 1679'. Oil on canvas in dutch style ebonised frames. Dimensions 58 x 47.5cms each. The gentleman is shown in a landscape at dusk, leaning against a stone capital, wearing a white chemise decorated with lace, a black coat and a brown silk cloak draped across his body. The lady is elegantly dressed in an ivory silk gown decorated with jewels on the neckline and shoulders, the contrasting sleeves in gold fabric, with a rose pink silk cloak draped over her shoulder and bodice. She wears a pearl necklace and earrings with her fair hair worn up with ringlets falling down onto her chest in the fashionable style of the day. She stands with one hand touching a lock of her hair as she rests her arm on the bowl of a stone water drinking fountain...

Nude Male Portrait, Burgundy Colour, Original Oil Painting English School, Mid 20th Century Oil painting on board, unframed Board size: 30 x 20 inch...

Portrait of a Nun French School, 19th century oil on canvas, simple wooden slip frame framed: 27.5 x 20 inches canvas: 27 x 19.75 inches provenance: private collection, Champagne reg...

A finely detailed silhouette of a Victorian lady, unusuallly depicted wearing an elaborate hat with lace brim and plume. Circle of Hinton Gibbs (1783-1839) Portrait of a lady, bust ...

Portrait of a Gentleman in Ruff Collar and Robes Dutch School, 18th century oil on canvas laid over panel, unframed board: 28.5 x 24 inches provenance: private collection condition: ...

Flamenco Dancer by Annie Faure (French 1940-2021) signed lower corner oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas size: 18 x 15 inches condition: overall very good, minor surface scuffs ...

A charming study of a gentleman in his finery. Signed illegibly and dated '1882' to the lower right. On canvas.

An original oil on canvas on panel by Sir James Jebusa Shannon. The portrait dates to the Edwardian period and depicts a bold British Impressionist painting of a beautiful young woma...

Another very pretty mixed media from the studio of this well collected British artist. Image 21" x 15" mounted Originally from Bury, in the North of England, John Emanuel works in ...

This fine Biedermeier period portrait depicts an arresting sitter, adorned with a substantial choker of pearls. No detail of the woman's fashionable dress goes unnoticed by the artis...

This atmospheric 18th century portrait oil painting is attributed to a Scottish artist. Painted circa 1790, The painting is a half length portrait of a seated gentleman. He is wearing a blue bonnet, the badge of a Scottish country gentleman and smoking a clay pipe. The way the light catches his hand and face and gleams on his buttons is lovely. The frame is super in that it echoes the button on his jacket. This is an excellent example of an 18th century Scottish portrait...

The Drummer French School, late 19th century Post-Impressionist School oil on canvas, framed framed: 28 x 22.5 inches canvas: 24 x 18 inches provenance: private collection, France co...

"Tessa" by Eric Hargreaves, British mid 20th century signed oil on canvas, framed framed: 24 x 19.5 inches canvas: 20 x 16 inches Provenance: private collection, UK Condition: very ...

The Martyrdom Of Saint Barbara, 17th Century SCHOOL OF GUERCINO (1581-1666) Large 17th Century Italian Old Master of the Martyrdom of St Barbara, oil on canvas. After being impriso...

This stunning Edwardian portrait oil painting is attributed to Scottish Kirkcudbright School artist William Stewart MacGeorge. Painted circa 1910, The painting shows the influences o...

A charming mid 19th century study depicting a man smoking a long pip. Presented in a gilt effect composition frame. On board.

A study of the bust of Ferdinand Bol's 'Portrait of A Mathematician' which is currently part of the Louvre Collection in Paris. Unsigned. Presented in a gilt frame. On canvas.

This sophisticated British portrait oil painting is by female artist Hedwig Pillitz and painted circa 1930. Her parents emigrated from Hungary to England and Hedwig and her actor sis...

The Madonna, Christ Child and St. John Italian School, 18th century oil on wood, framed in period gilt antique frame framed: 16 x 14.5 inches wood: 9 x 6.5 inches provenance: private...

Portrait of a lady, traditionally identified as Grace Loftus,of Beverley hall yorkshire.Three-quarter-length, before a window. Dressed in blue and wearing a white bonnet. The paintin...

'French Boy in Bloomers', gouache on art paper (circa 1960s-70s), by Raymond Debiève. A young boy emerges from a beach cabana wearing a bloomer bathing costume that was still in use ...

Very stylish, unique and original 1940's fashion design by French illustrator Geneviève Thomas. The painting, executed in gouache and pencil. The s...

Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Circle of Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680) Queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland, married to King Charles...

A fine painting after George Romney of The Hon.Reverend Anchitel Grey (1774 – 1833) as a Boy The painting depicts a boy aged about ten, standing, turned to the left, gazing at the spectator, wearing a blue coat, and white linen collar, a spaniel with its paws on his chest. Shoulder length brown hair. Trees in the background on the right, distant horizon with cloudy sky on the left. The sitter was the third son of George Harry Grey, 5th Earl of Stamford (1765-1845) and Lady Henrietta Cavendish-Bentinck (died 4th June 1827), daughter of the 2nd Duke of Portland...

A charming oil portrait depicting a mother with an infant in a christening gown on her knee. Both smile towards the artist, who captures them against a dark background. Signed to the...

Portrait of Mr. Gilbert (believed to be the founder of 'Gilberts Charity, Bridgwater, Somerset) English School artist, late 17th/ early 18th century oil...

Dame Ethel Walker DBE ARA (1861-1951) Young Man in a Red Tie Oil on canvas 51 x 40.6 cm.; (within frame) 70 x 59.7 cm. Provenance: The Lefevre Gallery, London, stock number X890; Christie’s, London, Modern British Pictures, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture, 12 September 1996, lot 58; Bonhams, London, Modern British and Irish Art, 23 November 2022, lot 177; Private Collection, United Kingdom. This focussed composition is dominated by a handsome young man in profile, frowning with a concentrated glare. His slender cheeks meet a jaw brushed with a masculine grey, complimented by the blue of a flower or pocket square, and the shadow of a loose strand of oiled hair that rests across his forehead. The stylistic sophistication shows Walker at her best, ambitiously combining measured figuration with expressive abstraction, as delicious dashes of pigment appear still wet, and dissonant swipes energetically mark the surface of the canvas. With an elegance that borders on the effete, the sitter’s urbane style includes a spearpoint collar, framed by the wide lapels of his suit jacket. Most significantly, the young man’s dandyish fashion is augmented by the conspicuous titular red tie which he wears – an established expression of queerness in the 20th century. Painted by the lesbian artist Dame Ethel Walker, it is likely that the portrait is that of a gay man belonging to London’s queer artistic circles. Indeed, Walker’s male sitters (who constitute but a fraction of her output) are typically conceived as modish, and often wear striking colourful ties. Walker was one of the earliest lesbian artists to overtly explore her sexuality in her works, and an aesthetic fascination with the female form culminated with her glorious large-scale ‘decorations’, exemplified by Decoration: The Excursion of Nausicaa (Tate, N03885). Red neckties had been established in the 20th century as a coded (though appropriately colourful) expression of queerness, not dissimilar to the green carnation of the Wildean aesthetes. The gay writer and musician Mikhail Kuzmin was painted in 1909 in a stark red tie. Two decades later, the Anglo-French physician Havelock Ellis described the red necktie as an emblem amongst queer New Yorkers: ‘[…] there has been a fashion for a red tie to be adopted by inverts [homosexuals] as their badge’ (Ellis, p. 299). The motif permeated fiction, and in Thomas Mann’s 1912 novel Death In Venice, the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach begins to wear a red necktie after he develops an infatuation with a beautiful young boy staying at his hotel. William Faulkner’s 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury includes an unnamed male character identified throughout by his distinctive red necktie, which is the subject of veiled insinuations against his masculinity. Walker must surely have been familiar with this symbolic importance when she executed the present portrait. Her few portraits of male sitters include colourful neckties almost exclusively, and include numerous examples of red neckties. Indeed, the artist herself preferred to wear a red tie, a declaration which so impressed itself on Virginia Woolf that she noted it in a diary entry after tea with Walker (Bell, p. 282). Walker, who painted Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell, had once offered to paint Woolf in the nude, as Lilith. Around the same time, Augustus John painted the gay peer Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar, in a loose red necktie or neck scarf. The portrait passed through the Lefevre Gallery, which also represented Walker, and which inventoried the present work. While the sartorial choice may have been incidental, a colourful accessory chosen to enliven the portrait, its prominent inclusion would suggest a personal significance to Walker, the recognition of a shared experience between artist and subject. Dame Ethel Walker was hailed as a leading female artist of her generation, and as late as 2010 was one of only four women artists to have been honoured as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Walker was born in Edinburgh in 1861 to the botanist Arthur Abney Walker, a descendent of the Walker family of iron industrialists, whose estates included Clifton House (Rotherham) and Blythe Hall (Nottinghamshire). She attended school in London after the family moved to Wimbledon, and in 1880 met the fellow artist Clara Christian, with whom she would form an important personal and professional bond. The women’s relationship was later allegorised by the writer George Moore as that of Stella (Christian) and Florence (Walker) in his fictionalised three-volume memoir Hail and Farewell. Walker went on to Putney School of Art and Westminster School of Art, and studied under Frederick Brown, who became a lifelong mentor. Around 1893 Walker took further study at the Slade School of Art, partly under Walter Sickert, and returned in 1912, 1916, and 1921. Although Walker enjoyed painting floral still lifes and seascapes, her best work was portraiture. She worked from her studio at 38 Cheyne Walk for most of her career, and enjoyed a prominent role in London’s artistic milieu. Her sitters included the artists Lucien Pissarro, Orovida Camille Pissarro, Vanessa Bell, and Barbara Hepworth; she painted Nancy Astor, the Countess of Strathcona, the editor Joan Werner Laurie, and author Leo Walmsley. The actors Flora Robson and Elsa Lanchester sat for Walker, as did the young Christopher Robin Milne. Walker herself was photographed by the bisexual photographer and painter Humphrey Spender...