Saturday, January 31, 2009

Thomas Worsey


[Still Life of Primroses, Apple Blossom and a Birds Nest]
1857
oil on panel
.
1829 - 1875.
.
added 21 Feb 09 courtesy of Dianne Brown
Thom W, RBSA, 1829-1875
The Ws all came from S Staffordshire, but his branch had moved to B'ham. The Ws are best known for being canal boat builders in Tipton.
Thomas began work in his uncle's japanning and papier mache business but as he had obvious talent he was apprenticed elsewhere to become an ornamenter of papier mache wares. He remained at this till about 21, when he decided to branch out as an artist. He painted 10 pictures and sent them off, 9 were sold and this decided him to become an artist.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy and was a member of the Royal B'ham Society of Artists..He also lived in Scotland for a time. He was never in very good health and died perhaps before he became truly well known
I have 3 of his pictures, and there was one once on the Antiques Road Show.

Annie Feray Mutrie


[Margaret's Corner]
1867
oil on canvas
.
1826 - 1893.

George Clare - Still Life with Primroses and Bird's Nest


oil on canvas

Benjamin Williams Leader - A Sunny Afternoon, North Wales


1867
oil on canvas (retouched)
Purchased from the artist by Mr Wallis (French Gallery) for £25 in June 1867

Alfred de Breanski - Loch Lomond at Sunset


oil on canvas

Thursday, January 29, 2009

William Stephen Coleman - Teasing the Kitten

oil on panel
http://www.bridgemanartondemand.com/artist/2623/William_Stephen_Coleman
http://www.artnet.com/artist/4267/william-stephen-coleman.html
http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/fran/013829.shtml

George H. Bernasconi - Meeting of the City of Birmingham Pharmaceuticals, 1888


[Meeting of the City of Birmingham Pharmaceuticals, 1888] 1888
.
fl. 1861 - 1886.


Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 4,025 GBP (1998)


meeting of the city of birmingham pharmaceuticals, 1888
signed and dated l.r.: Geo. H. Bernasconi/1888
oil on canvas, unframed
120.5 by 151 cm., 27 1/2 by 59 1/2 in.

The present work shows Sir Thomas Barclay and members of Southalls and William Spencer & Sons and includes may exact portraits of the firm's directors and their families. Sir Thomas Barclay, Kt JP, leans against the depiction of 'Ye Apothecary's Laboratorie - Southalls' in the centre. He was the prime mover for piping fresh water from the Welsh mountains to Birmingham and thereby virtually eradicating cholera and typhoid from that city where epidemics had raged in the 19th century. He was also a Liberal councillor for Birmingham. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham and many city fathers stand on the balcony in the background.

George H. Bernasconi was a member of a Birmingham family of artists and exhibited in both London and Birmingham.

James Collinson - The Bazaar




Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 11,500 GBP
the bazaar
signed l.r.: James Collinson
oil on canvas, painted oval
29 by 24.5 cm., 11 1/2 by 9 1/2 in.

This is one of a number of related paintings by Collinson which have oval formats and show the half-length figure of the girl occupying the centre of the composition. It is possible that the first in the series was the painting For Sale (Castle Museum, Nottingham), which Collinson showed at the 1857 Royal Academy and which was included in the exhibition Great Victorian Pictures (Arts Council, 1978, no.5). Another version, entitled At the Bazaar and also dated 1857, is in the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield. A third version, entitled The Empty Purse, is in the collection of the Tate Gallery. A companion to the present subject, showing a somewhat older woman placing an advertisement in a window and entitled To let, also exists in various versions

George Goodwin Kilburne - Absence


oil on canvas

John Anthony Puller - A Street Fight


oil on canvas

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Sidney Richard Percy - Blea Tarn, Westmoreland


oil on canvas

Benjamin Williams Leader







[Sunset] 1861
oil on canvas
[Peaceful Evening] 1889
oil on canvas
probably painted in Worcestershire (his native county). A smaller version of this is also known.
[Summertime, Ullswater] 1867
oil on canvas


peaceful evening, hesperus
signed and dated l.l.: B W LEADER 1889; signed and inscribed with title on the stretcher
oil on canvas
112 by 183 cm., 44 by 72 in.

This fine view of a parish church and inn, with a sky lit by the setting sun, almost certainly shows the landscape of Worcestershire, Benjamin Williams Leader's native county and his most favoured painting locality. He had been born, brought up, and educated in Worcester. In 1862, he had settled at Whittington, a village on the south-eastern fringe of the town. The breadth and balance of composition of Leader's later paintings place him within a long landscape tradition and his works are often praised for their distinct and recognisably English character. Lewis Lusk, for example, wrote of Leader's 'careful retention of the picturesque, his style of arranging his masses, his selection of cloud effects, his peculiarly poetic strain of the Lyric order, which so often makes his canvas an illustration of some choice verse of an English poet - there is sufficient likelihood that these qualities of his work will always ensure respect and study from many a maturing mind. These are all inherent in the national character.'

Leader became famous on the strength of one particular painting - February Fill-Dyke (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery), which he showed to acclaim at the Royal Academy in 1881. This was followed by a series of works treated with attention to poignant and fugitive effects of light and atmosphere. In the Evening there shall be Light, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882, led to Leader's being elected as an associate academician. The same painting won a gold medal for the artist when shown at the Paris Salon in 1889. Our own painting, Peaceful Evening, which dates from 1889, may be compared specifically to a work entitled Parting Day, which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1883 and which contains within its composition a view of the same church seen in Peaceful Evening although viewed across the breadth of a river instead of the lane and flooded field seen in the present work.

In his diaries Leader records working on the present picture during January and February 1889. At the time he referred to the picture as Evening Roadside Inn or Evening Roadside Public House. In that same year he sold the picture to Agnews and at that time referred to it as A Roadside Inn. At the time of the sale he may have inscribed the more poetic title of Peaceful Evening, Hesperus onto the stretcher.
A smaller version of the picture is in the collection of Ballarat Art Gallery, Ballarat, Melbourne, Australia.

Purchased from the artist in 1889 by Thomas Agnew & Sons (£600);
purchased later that year by J. Reinbach, Esq. (£800);

Ruth Wood, Benjamin Williams Leader, Antique Collector's Club, 1998.

We are gratful to Ruth Wood for her kind assistance in cataloging this lot which is to be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the artist.

George Goodwin Kilburne - Caught


Watercolour over pencil

Charles Napier Hemy - On the Llugwy, June


summer 1862
oil on canvas
.

George Cole - Cattle Watering


1879
oil on canvas

Monday, January 26, 2009

George Washington Brownlow - Training up a Child


[Training up a Child]
signed l.r.: GWBrownlow; signed and inscribed with title and the artist's address on a label on the stretcher
oil on canvas
63.5 by 89 cm., 25 by 35 in.
Exhibited:London, Royal Society of British Artists, 1869
.
1835 - 1876.

George Elgar Hicks - two paintings


oil on canvas

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 29,900 GBP
signed and dated l.r.: GE Hicks04
oil on canvas
76 by 51 cm., 30 by 20 in.



[Little Dreamer] 1883
signed and dated l.l.: G E Hicks/1883
oil on canvas
47 by 39.5 cm., 18 1/2 by 15 1/2 in.

George Smith - Paying the Legacies




signed and dated l.r.: George Smith 1872
oil on canvas
51 by 79 cm., 20 by 31 in.

Exhibited:
London, Royal Academy, 1872, no.405.

George Bernard O'Neill - The First Lesson


1877
oil on canvas

Edward John Poynter photograph


Saturday, January 24, 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009

Important British Pictures and Watercolors London,December, 2008 Sotherby's review


William Powell Frith - The Village Pastor



Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 11,500 GBP (1998)
signed and inscribed l.l.: W P Frith ft
oil on canvas
58 by 82 cm., 22 3/4 by 32 1/4 in.

The Village Pastor was sent to the 1844 Royal Academy where, according to Frith, 'it was amongst the fortunate ''liners'''. Shortly afterwards, in the summer of 1844 and on the strength of the present painting, Frith was elected an associate of the Royal Academy.

London, Royal Academy, 1845, no.498

Literature:
W.P. Frith, My Autobiography and Remiscences, two volumes, London, 1888, I, pp.113-5;
Aubrey Noakes, William Frith - Extraordinary Victorian Painter, London, 1978, illd. p.12

Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch at her easel


Postcard c. 1900
1869 - 1958.
Horse and animal painter and a popular teacher of painting.



[Watering the horses]
oil on canvas
http://www.artnet.com/artist/553100/lucy-elizabeth-kemp-welch.html

Briton Riviere at his easel


.
1884 photogravure reproduced in Artists at Home.
He lived near London Zoo and often hd live animals in his studio to paint.

Arthur Stocks


[How the Lines were placed at Waterloo] 1872
oil on canvas
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1846 - 1889.
Genre and portrait painter. Son of S. Lumb a famous engraver. Studied with his Father and at the RA Schools. Exhibited at the RA 1867 - 89 and elsewhere and elected RI in 1882. Both his brothers were also painters.

Henry Andrews - Hunting Party


oil on canvas