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Period: 18th Century
Venus
Located in London, GB
Richard Westall, R.A. (1765-1836)
Venus
signed and dated ‘R. Westall 1794’ (lower right)
pencil and watercolour, with white heightening
image 11 ⅞ x 15 ¼ in. (30.2 x 38.7 cm.)
frame 22 ⅛ x 26 in. (56.3 x 66.1 cm.)
Provenance:
Private Collection, UK.
Venus (1794) was produced during a highly creative and defining period of Richard Westall’s career and artistic development, when from 1790-95 the ambitious young artist was sharing a house at 57 Greek Street, Soho, with his friend Sir Thomas Lawrence, the future President of the Royal Academy.
Whilst lodging together, Lawrence became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1791, Westall the following year, and both were elected full-members in 1794 – the year Lawrence was appointed Painter-in-Ordinary to His Majesty King George III. Westall was to become Queen Victoria’s first Drawing Master, before her ascension to the throne.
It was in this very year, 1794 - as the two young artists became Royal Academicians - that the present watercolour was executed, and it is exciting to speculate that Lawrence would have examined and given his thoughts on the work.
Highly comparable to The Wallace Collection’s Nymph and cupids (c.1793, cat. P757), acquired by Francis Seymour-Conway (1777-1842), 3rd Marquess of Hertford, (who hung it in his bedroom), the mid-1790s saw Westall exhibiting and returning to similar subject-matter on a number of occasions. Two works with titles that could be applied to the present picture were exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1794 (no. 341 Nymph and Cupids) and 1795 (no. 620, A Wood–nymph and Cupids). However, a print after the watercolour, engraved by F. Screen, entitles the piece Venus.
Westall is regarded as a great virtuoso watercolourist, and Venus is evidence of the young artist’s mastery of the medium. Indeed, it is unusual to find a watercolour of comparable age so well preserved, and retaining such vibrancy - the superb condition providing an insight into his exceptional brushwork and use of colour.
Venus languishes luxuriously on her woodland bed, the trunk of a tree resembling a curtain, while three winged putti play beside her, seeming to gesture to someone in the woods. Cupid draws back his bow and aims an arrow of love, perhaps about to pierce the heart of a hunting nobleman, or unsuspecting woodcutter. The striking contrast between the almost luminescent nymph, with the deep, rich, luxuriant forest, gives the glade an alluring sense of mystery – perhaps an allusion to the mysteries of the heart, a pre-occupation with Romanticism, central to the emerging thought of the time. Westall can be classified as one of the great Romantic artists, and even painted Lord Byron’s portrait...
Category
Romantic 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Pencil
$25,265
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
Study for a Frontispiece, a baroque drawing by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini
By Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini
Located in PARIS, FR
This masterly frontispiece study, executed with a very sure hand, testifies to the survival of the great Baroque taste in 18th century Venice. It could be one of the very last works by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini: the few lines that cross the papal arms evoke those of Benedict XIV, who became pope in 1740, one year before the artist's death.
1. Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and the European influence of Venetian history painting in the 18th century
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was born in Venice in 1675 and trained in the studio of the Milanese painter Paolo Pagani (1655 - 1716). Pagani, who had been living in Venice since 1667, took him to Moravia and Vienna from 1690 to 1696. After a stay in Rome from 1699 to 1701, Pellegrini married Angiola Carriera in 1704, the sister of the great pastelist Rosalba Carriera.
From 1708 onwards, Pellegrini left Venice and began an extensive tour of Europe: he worked in England between 1708 and 1713, where he met great success, particularly at Kimbolton Castle and Castle Howard. He then worked in Germany and the Netherlands, then in Bohemia and Austria, before returning briefly to England in 1719. In 1720 he was in Paris where he decorated the ceilings of the Royal Bank for John Law...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
18th Century Old Master pencil study of cows by French artist Jean Baptiste Huet
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
A rare and charming study of cows by 18th Century French painter, engraver and designer Jean-Baptiste Huet.
The details are:
Jean Baptiste Huet (French, 1745 – 1811)
Study of cows
P...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pencil
French school 18th Century, A mytholological scene with a couple, drawing
Located in Paris, FR
French school 18th Century,
A mytholological scene with a couple,
Pen and brown ink, brown ink wash on paper
11.5 x 11.5 cm, diameter of the main scene : 10,5 cm
in a modern frame under glass : 33.5 x 33.5 cm
This drawing by a particularly talented 18th-century artist - as yet unidentified - is notable for its mastery of pen and wash...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
A pair of oval drawings for Ovid, Metamophoses
By Charles Joseph Natoire
Located in Fairlawn, OH
A pair of oval drawings for Ovid, Metamophoses
Left: The Triumph of Amphitrite (Book I)
Right: Diana and Actaeon (Book III)
From: Ovid, Metamophoses
These mythological studies are after paintings by Simon Vouet (1590-1649) that decorated the Chateau de Chilly. They were commissioned by the Marquis D'Effiat in 1630-31. The scholarly record documenting the commission are a series of engravings by Michel...
Category
Baroque 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Pen
19th century view of Raglan Castle by English artist David Hall McKewan
Located in Philadelphia, PA
David Hall McKewan
(English, 1817-1873)
Raglan Castle
Watercolor on paper, 9 x 13 inches (sight)
David Hall McKewan studied watercolor painting under David Cox (the elder) and exhib...
Category
Realist 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
Set of Twelve 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
18th Century Roman School , A Palazzo with antiques, drawing
Located in Paris, FR
18th Century Roman School
A Palazzo with antiques
Brown ink and pen, brown ink wash on paper
12.5 x 20 cm
Framed : 28,5 x 35.5
This nice drawing represents a genre scene, with a nobleman, priests, a mother and her children...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
George Edwards : A Set of Twelve 18th Century Etchings of Hummingbirds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
The Cave Of Vicovaro near Tivoli
Located in PARIS, FR
Peter Birmann
Basel 1758 - 1844
The Vicovaro grotto
Gouache on blue paper
29 x 47cm
Provenance: Kasimir Hagen, Cologne, his stamp (Lugt 4795) on verso
Exhibition: Europaïsche ...
Category
Romantic 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Gouache
$2,652 Sale Price
25% Off
Attributed to Francesco Casanova (1727-1803), A Mamluk fighting , watercolor
Located in Paris, FR
Attributed to Francesco Casanova (1727-1803),
A Mamluk fighting on his horse,
watercolor and ink on paper
35 x 26 cm
Framed 54 x 44 cm (vintage frame, the mount and the back have b...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Johann Weinmann: c.18th Engravings of Fruit in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand-made parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frames.
Johann Weinmann (1683-1741), a G...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
Set of Twelve 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
Johann Weinmann: 18th Century Engravings of an aloe in a decorative pot.
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings of decorative urns with aloes and cacti from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand- made, parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
Landscape with Figures in the English Countryside
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Landscape with Figures in the English Countryside
Pen, ink and graphite with gray and brown washes on laid watermarked paper, c. 1740
Signed by the artist lower left of image: "Chate...
Category
Romantic 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
France 18th Century, Pastorale (Arcadian Landscape), original drawing
Located in Paris, FR
France 18th Century,
Pastorale (Arcadian Landscape)
Black chalk and heightenings of white gouache on blue-grey paper
19 x 31 cm
Framed : 34.5 x 46.5 cm
The atmosphere and the subje...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Chalk
$1,009 Sale Price
20% Off
Portrait of a Young Officer, Thomas Lawrence, Irish Volunteers
By Sir Thomas Lawrence
Located in London, GB
Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA
1769-1830
Portrait of a Young Officer
Pastel with touches of black chalk on paper
Signed and inscribed on an old label verso: "Be pleased to keep away / from the Damp & from dust / T Lawrence AE 13. / 1783."
Wash mount and gilt frame
Provenance
W.E. Spooner;
Anonymous sale, Phillips London, 17 April 2000 lot 196
Sothebys, Old Master & Early British Paintings, 14 April 2011 • London Lot 246
Old label verso describes how this was drawn in 1783 at the age of 14!
This is a portrait of an officer from the Irish Volunteers. The Irish Volunteers was a part-time military force raised by local initiative in Ireland in 1778. Their original purpose was to guard against invasion and to preserve law and order at a time when British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight abroad during the American Revolutionary War.
As a young boy Thomas Lawrence lived with his parents who ran a coaching inn near Bath. Clearly talented from this young age, he drew the passing travellers who stopped at the inn and this soldier may have been one such sitter. Lawrence was only 13 years old when he drew this work. To capitalise upon their son's talents, the family later moved to Bath and sent Lawrence to London in 1787 where he entered the Royal Academy schools at the earliest possible age. Works from such an early period of Lawrence's creativity are rarely to be found today.
This rare early portrait drawn in Bath shows the level of technical skill that Lawrence had reached at 14 years old. His use of colour and tone to depict flesh and all the subtle variations in the texture and pigmentation of his sitter’s face, powdered hair and clothes show how Lawrence conceived pastel as a form of painting and partly explains how he could have made the smooth transition to oil painting so soon afterwards.
When he arrived in Bath from Devizes in 1780, eleven-year-old Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) was promoted as a natural-born genius like his Renaissance predecessor Raphael. The local press announced the arrival of the boy wonder and his ‘Striking Sketches’, inviting the ‘Nobility and Gentry’ to sit for their portraits.
Thomas Lawrence was a prodigious portraitist from the age of just eight, when he began to draw his first portraits in pencil...
Category
Romantic 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Oil Pastel
A Coachman - 18th Century British Figure watercolour drawing by Paul Sandby
By Paul Sandby
Located in London, GB
PAUL SANDBY
(1731-1809)
Study of a Coachman
Pencil and brown wash, shaped
Framed
16.5 by 9 cm., 6 ½ by 3 ½ in.
(frame size 32 by 22.5 cm., 12 ½ by 9 in.)
Provenance:
Iolo Williams;
Private collection.
Exhibited:
Sudbury, Gainsborough House, 1979.
Sandby was born in Nottingham and moved to London in 1745. He and his brother Thomas first worked in the military drawing department at the Tower of London, later working on a military survey of new roads and bridges in the Highlands. On leaving this post in 1751 he spent some time living with his brother who had been appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park. There he assisted his brother, and made a series of drawings of the castle, town and neighbourhood. In 1760 he settled in London where he contributed to the first exhibition of the Society of Artists where he regularly exhibited until the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, becoming one of its founder members. In same year he was appointed chief drawing...
Category
Realist 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Louis Lesueur (1746-1803) Landscape with ruins, 1789, drawing signed and dated
Located in Paris, FR
Louis Lesueur (1746-1803)
A Fantasy Landscape with ancient ruins, 1789,
signed and dated "L Lesueur 1789" in the bottom centre
Pen and ink and ink wash on paper
14.8 x 22 cm
In goo...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
Capriccio con arco (verso: study of a man)
Located in Paris, Île-de-France
Italian School, 18th century, circle of Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Capriccio con arco (verso: study of a man)
Brown ink on paper,
39 x 24.5 cm
Unsigned
Provenance:
Private collec...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Laid Paper
Johann Weinmann: 18th Century Engraving of an aloe in a decorative pot.
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings of decorative urns with aloes and cacti from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand- made, parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
Johann Weinmann: 18th Century Engravings of Sunflowers, Set of 4, Framed
Located in Richmond, GB
A complete set of four hand-coloured mezzotint engravings of sunflowers from: "Phytanthoza Iconographia", c1739, presented in hand-made, parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frame...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
Johann Weinmann: c18th Botanical Engravings in Decalcomania Frames, Set of 6
Located in Richmond, GB
A group of mezzotint engravings of flowers from: "Phytanthoza Iconographia", c1739, presented in hand-made parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frames.
Johann Weinmann (1683-174...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
George Edwards: c18th Engravings of Birds in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: "A History of Uncommon Birds", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural Histo...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards: c18th Engravings of Birds in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: "A History of Uncommon Birds", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural Histo...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
18th Century, Portrait of a Lady in a Tondo, red chalk drawing
Located in Paris, FR
French (?) school circa 1770
Portrait of a Lady in a Tondo,
red chalk on paper
20 x 29 cm
Numbered 25 on the upper left
Little holes in the bottom (intended for binding)
Not framed
...
Category
Baroque 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Chalk
$554 Sale Price
20% Off
Johann Weinmann: c18th Botanical Engravings in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
"Phytanthoza Iconographia", c1737-1745.
A wonderful selection of yellow and blue flowers: hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", presented in hand-m...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
George Edwards, Engravings of Parrots, published by Seligmann.
Located in Richmond, GB
PRICE IS FOR EACH FRAMED PRINT
"Sammlung Verschiedenr Auslandischer und Selener Vogel", Nuremberg 1770-1773. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (1749 -1776): engravings with origina...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards: Set of Twelve Parrots, Published by Seligmann.
Located in Richmond, GB
PRICE IS FOR THE SET OF TWELVE
"Sammlung Verschiedenr Auslandischer und Selener Vogel", Nuremberg 1770-1773. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (1749 -1776): engravings with origina...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
Two Angels - Ink and Watercolor Drawing by A. Brustolon - Early 1700
By Andrea Brustolon
Located in Roma, IT
Due Angeli is an original artwork realized by Andrea Brustolon.
Mixed media, ink and watercolor.
The artwork rapresents two baroque angels, study realized by Brostolon for a sculpt...
Category
Baroque 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
Johann Weinmann: c.18th Engravings of Fruit in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand-made parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frames.
Johann Weinmann (1683-1741), a G...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
18th century ink study for the Leveson-Gower Children
Located in London, GB
Collections: J. Goodfriend, USA.
Brown wash and pencil on laid paper
Framed dimensions: 13.25 x 11.75 inches
This powerful drawing was made at the time that Romney was painting the famous group portrait of the Gower Children now in Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Romney was a bold and incisive draughtsman who made numerous rich brown ink studies, principally for historical compositions; by contrast, comparatively few studies linked directly to his portraits survive. The existence of a group of studies for the Gower Children underscores its importance to Romney. The sitters were the five youngest of the eight children of Granville, 2nd Earl Gower who, at the time the portrait was commissioned, was President of the Council in Lord North’s government and one of the best-connected and most influential people in England. The present drawing which is a large scale treatment of the composition in its final form perfectly distils Romney’s conceit: the younger children dancing whilst their elder sister, in the guise of a Bacchante plays the tambourine. The bold and dramatic study underlines both the artistic confidence and classical grandeur Romney gained during his trip to Italy between 1773 and 1775.
The commission from Granville, 2nd Earl Gower to paint five of his children came shortly after Romney’s Continental tour. The initial idea, as represented by the present drawing, seems to have been to paint Lady Anne, the figure on the right of the composition playing the tambourine, who was the youngest of Gower’s first four children by his second wife Lady Louisa Egerton and who married the Rev. Edward Vernon Harcourt, later Archbishop of York, with three of her younger half-siblings by Gower’s third wife, Lady Susanna Stewart: at the left Lady Georgina, who became Countess of St Germans following her marriage to the Hon. William Eliot; at the right Lady Charlotte Sophia, later Duchess of Beaufort and in the centre Lady Susanna, later Countess of Harrowby. Romney added a fifth child to the finished portrait, Gower’s son: Lord Granville, later created Viscount Granville and Earl Granville. In Italy Romney had produced a large number of studies of classical antiquities and old master paintings.
The commission from Gower offered Romney the opportunity to explore a complex multi-figural group, putting into practice the kind of ambitious classical quotations that Reynolds was currently exploiting. In 1773 Reynolds had completed the remarkable group portrait of the Montgomery Sisters, now in the Tate Gallery, London, which showed them adorning a herm of the Roman god Hymen; the composition used a garland to link the three figures who were shown in classical costume dancing at the foot of a Roman sculpture. Scholars have long pointed to a similar sources for the two compositions: the works of Nicolas Poussin. Whilst the Montgomery Sisters is based, in part, on a Bacchanal now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Gower Children has always been associated with Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time, now in the Wallace Collection, London. It seems more likely that Romney was looking to an antique source in the form of the Borghese Dancers, a Roman relief, then in Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Romney would have seen the relief of interlocking, dancing maidens and would also have known Guido Reni’s Aurora...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Pencil
Johann Weinmann: c.18th Engravings of Fruit in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand-made parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frames.
Johann Weinmann (1683-1741), a G...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
Johann Weinmann: c.18th Engravings of Fruit in Decalcomania Frames
Located in Richmond, GB
Hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", c1739, presented in hand-made parcel-gilt, ebonised and decalcomania frames.
Johann Weinmann (1683-1741), a G...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Mezzotint
George Edwards, Engravings of Parrots, published by Seligmann.
Located in Richmond, GB
PRICE IS FOR EACH FRAMED PRINT
"Sammlung Verschiedenr Auslandischer und Selener Vogel", Nuremberg 1770-1773. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (1749 -1776): engravings with origina...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
A Pair of 18th cent Dutch Still Life Watercolors Flowers in a Glass Vase 1797
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Cornelis Johannes de Bruyn (c. 1763- c. 1828)
A lovely pair of 18th century Dutch still life watercolors depicting assorted flowers in a glass vase.
Watercolor on paper
13 5/8 x 9 5/8 inches (34.6 x 24.4 cm) each
Framed: 23 x 18 1/2 inches each
Signed: J.C.J. Bruyn 1797 G
(Please request photos of the actual frame)
Johannes de Bruyn made his debut as a flower and fruit still life painter in the 19th
century in Utrecht. He was a student of the painter G.J. van Hulstyn. In our pair of flower still lifes, Cornelis Johannes de Bruyn has depicted two bouquets of colorful flowers set in a stone niche. They are delicate, highly detailed, realistic pieces painted in the vein of seventeenth century Old Master works. Each bouquet is arranged in a low glass bowl on a small marble pedestal...
Category
Dutch School 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Engraving
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
A bridge over river Oil on canvas British Inscribed William Marlow
Located in London, GB
William Marlow (1740 - 1815)
A bridge over river
Oil on canvas
Inscribed, 'William Marlow' to old label verso
Provenance:
J. Palser & Sons, 27 King Street, London
Dimensions:
(Fra...
Category
English School 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Oil
Figures by a River at the Edge of a Wood
Located in Paris, Île-de-France
Ferdinand von Kobell (1740–1799)
Figures by a River at the Edge of a Wood
Black chalk, stump and white chalk highlights, on paper
19 x 28.8 cm
Signed and dated lower right: 1777
P...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Chalk
Portrait of a Lady - Late 18th Century European Pastel
Located in London, GB
European School
Late 18th Century
Portrait of a Lady
Pastel on paper, mounted on canvas
Image size: 28 x 23 inches
Contemporary style frame
Provenance:
Ernst Museum Auction
This pastel portrait of a lady dates from the late eighteenth century. She is pictured in a white muslin dress...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel, Laid Paper
Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam
Located in Paris, Île-de-France
Jan Goeree (Middelburg 1670 – Amsterdam 1731)
Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (c. 1724)
Red chalk for the architecture, pen and black ink, grey wash on paper
Composition reversed in preparation for engraving
25 × 17.5 cm
Watermark: Hunting horn, Churchill 318 (dated 1724)
Unsigned
Provenance
Private collection, France
Context & Attribution
Trained in the studio of Gérard de Lairesse, Jan Goeree was among the finest Dutch engravers of the early eighteenth century, celebrated for his architectural views of Amsterdam. This drawing is a preparatory study for an engraving of the same subject now preserved in a major public collection. The final print—slightly larger—closely follows the reversed composition of this sheet.
Subject
In the center of the Gothic nave, five bearers carry a catafalque toward a freshly dug grave—a tribute to the naval heroes often buried in the Nieuwe Kerk. This funerary motif, familiar from Dutch painting (e.g. Emanuel de Witte, 1657), evokes the vanitas theme and the transience of earthly life.
Technical Analysis
Goeree’s use of red chalk for the architecture and ink for the figures reveals his working method: the chalk lines could be used to produce a counterproof restoring the correct orientation of the architecture, while the inked figures remained adjustable before the design was transferred to the copper plate.
Place within the Oeuvre
Drawings of church...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Chalk, Ink
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Three drawings by François Boucher in a mounting by Jean-Baptiste Glomy
Located in PARIS, FR
We would like to thank Juliette Parmentier-Courreau of the Custodia Foundation for her welcome and support during the consultation of Glomy’s Journal des Ouvrages.
This spectacularly large "feuille de desseins ajustés" commissioned by François Boucher from Jean-Baptiste Glomy is emblematic of the painter's art and mastery of rocaille. It is also fully representative of the taste of this period in the field of decorative arts. The largest of these three drawings, placed at the bottom of the composition, is particularly interesting: dating from around 1756, it constitutes a modello (apparently unpublished) for the frontispiece of the "Catalogue des tableaux de Monsieur de Julienne"), preserved in the Morgan Library in New York.
1. François Boucher, the master of French rocaille
The extraordinary career of Francois Boucher was unmatched by his contemporaries in versatility, consistency and output. For many, particularly the writers and collectors who led the revival of interest in the French rococo during the last century, his sensuous beauties and plump cupids represent the French eighteenth century at its most typical. His facility with the brush, even when betraying the occasional superficiality of his art, enabled him to master every aspect of painting – history and mythology, portraiture, landscape, ordinary life and, as part of larger compositions, even still life. He had been trained as an engraver, and the skills of a draftsman, which he imbued in the studio of Jean-Francois Cars (1661 – 1738), stood him in good stead throughout his career; his delightful drawings are one of the most sought-after aspects of his oeuvre.
As a student of Francois Lemoyne (1688 - 1737), he mastered the art of composition. The four years he spent in Italy, from 1727-1731, educated him in the works of the masters, classics and history, that his modest upbringing had denied him.
On his return to Paris in 1734, he gained full membership of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture with his splendid Rinaldo and Armida (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Although, throughout his career, he occasionally painted subjects taken from the Bible, and would always have considered himself first as a history painter, his own repertoire of heroines, seductresses, flirtatious peasant girls and erotic beauties was better suited to a lighter, more decorative subject matter. His mastery of technique and composition enabled him to move from large scale tapestry...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Chalk, Ink
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Judith and Salome, a pair of oil paintings on canvas by Francesco Conti
Located in PARIS, FR
This widely referenced pair of paintings is one of Francesco Conti’s most successful productions. Francesco Conti is one of the finest painters of 18th-century Florence. In the shimmering colors typical of his best work, he represents two opposite characters from the Bible: the virtuous Judith, whose courage saves her people by cutting off the head of the invader Holofernes, and the depraved Salome, who under the influence of her mother becomes responsible for the beheading of the prophet John the Baptist.
The artist's talent lies in his ability to treat these two macabre subjects with a light touch, presenting us with two attractive women who seem to twirl with glee amidst the severed heads...
1. Francesco Conti, the “Florentine Tiepolo”
Francesco Conti is a major painter of the Florentine school of the 18th century; he can even probably be considered, along with Giovanni Domenico Ferretti (1692-1768), as one of the two main painters of the second quarter of the Florentine 18th century.
Born in Florence in 1682, Francesco Conti began his apprenticeship in the workshop of Simone Pignoni (1611 - 1698), a disciple of Francesco Furini; he was also influenced by the Venetian Sebastiano Ricci. A protégé of Marquis Riccardi, he accompanied him to Rome between 1699 and 1705, where he frequented Carlo Maratta's studio. He settled permanently in Florence in 1705.
Painted exclusively on canvas, the majority of his work consists of religious subjects, altarpieces or private devotional works. It is likely that Conti himself was a devout churchgoer, as evidenced by his affiliation, in the third decade of the eighteenth century, to the Society of the Disciples of Saint-John-the-Baptist, and his entry, at the end of his life, into the fraternity of the Venerable Society of the Holy Trinity.
In Florence, Conti worked for the Grand Duchy's major patrons, including the last Medici - in particular Giangastone and Annamaria Luisa, Electress Palatine - and confirmed his role as a reference painter under the Lorraine Regency, as master of the Public Drawing School, which was closely linked to the institute responsible for the manufacture of semi-precious stone mosaics, then located in the Uffizi complex.
Matteo Marangoni, an art critic of the early 20th century, praised his "brushwork full of elegance and true spirit of the 18th century", pointing out that Conti was "probably one of the best colorists" of the Florentine school of his time. These two characteristics led the art historian Paolo dal Poggetto to nickname him the "Florentine Tiepolo".
2. Judith and Salome, two biblical characters opposing each other
These two paintings form a pair presenting two biblical episodes, which have in common the depiction of a "heroine" carrying the severed head of a man.
While the Salome episode might at first appear to be an echo of the Old Testament story of Judith, each character is the exact opposite of the other. Judith, whose story is told in the Book of Judith, is a beautiful young widow from Bethulia who, accompanied by her maid, went into the camp of the invading Assyrians and won the confidence of Holofernes, the general commanding the enemy army. Invited to a great feast on the fourth evening, she took advantage of Holofernes' drunkenness to cut off his head. “She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterward she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in her food bag...
Category
Old Masters 18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
George Edwards, Engravings of Parrots, published by Seligmann.
Located in Richmond, GB
PRICE IS FOR EACH FRAMED PRINT
"Sammlung Verschiedenr Auslandischer und Selener Vogel", Nuremberg 1770-1773. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (1749 -1776): engravings with origina...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards, Engravings of Parrots, published by Seligmann.
Located in Richmond, GB
PRICE IS FOR EACH FRAMED PRINT
"Sammlung Verschiedenr Auslandischer und Selener Vogel", Nuremberg 1770-1773. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (1749 -1776): engravings with origina...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Etching
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
George Edwards: 18th Century Engravings of Ducks And Wading Birds
Located in Richmond, GB
George Edwards: ""A History of Uncommon Birds"", 1749-1761.
A prominent English naturalist and ornithologist, George Edwards (1694 -1773) is best known for his work, ""A Natural His...
Category
18th Century Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
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