![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/50-2010827101355_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Childe Hassam, 1855-1935 </p><p></p><p>Title: Royal Palms, Cuba 1895 </p><p></p><p> Showing 6 Palm Trees blowing in the breeze, 25" Wide by 31" Tall, Oil on Canvas, Signed and dated 1895 Dr. Chapman acquired this from Knoedler & Co., on Sept. 15, 1948. On the invoice, it states that this painting was catalogued in the American Paintings As Contained In The Residence of Horatio S. Rubens, New York as number 28 and that it was exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum of Art in October of 1937 as number 40, and owned by Horatio S. Rubens of New York. Mr. Rubens was a well known Cuban/American attorney who was involved with the tobacco industry from Cuba. His biographical story was covered in "Today`s Tyrant" in Time Monday, Sept. 19, 1932. One possible chain of ownership is that Horatio Rubens owned the painting by 1922 when it was discussed in a catalogue but not photographed. By 1944, B. J. Brofman of New York owned the painting, it then was sold to Grand Central Art Galleries who owned it from 1944 to 1948, then sold to the Milch Gallery along with Knoedler Gallery in 1948 who sold it to Dr. Chapman. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $250,000 </p>")
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325,619
to
520,990 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
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![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/40-201082710139_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Mary Cassatt </p><p></p><p>Title: "Simone Seated on the Grass Next to Her Mother" </p><p></p><p> Simone was one of the artists favorite subjects and is shown sitting on her Mother`s lap having a conversation. 25 1/2" wide by 30 1/2" tall, Pastel on Paper Framed Behind Glass. Signed Mary Cassatt lower right. M. Grieve & Co., hand carved frame. Purchased in 1950 from Knoedler & Co., Inc., NYC., a letter accompanies this from Walter J. Leary of Knoedler. This painting is illustrated in "Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings," by Adelyn Dohme Breeskin, Washington, D. C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970, No. 453 on Page 176. According to the Knoedler & Co. invoice, this painting had been in the collection of M. Robert Nerillon, French Consul at Milan in 1939, Signore Scopinovitch, Milan and M. Jacques Ruel, Paris. A 1980 letter from a dealer asking to purchase the painting Dr. Chapman purchased some 30 years earlier was met with the response, "Living with it gives us entirely too much pleasure to have it depart." Mrs. Breeskin gave this painting its title based on similar images. The last time this painting was exhibited was in the 1970 Smithsonian Exhibition on Mary Cassatt. In a letter from Mrs. Adelyn Breeskin, the author dates this as circa 1904. The Control Number at the Art Inventory Catalogue is IAP 80170453. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $200,000 </p>")
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260,495
to
455,866 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
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130,247
to
195,371 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
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![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/34635/2799833/2-2010820123013_small.jpg "<p>William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916) "Poplar Lake" (Lakeside Park). Oil on panel, (L. 52), signed at the lower left, executed in 1886, apprx. 10-1/2" x 14", framed in a wide gilt frame overall apprx. 16" x 19-3/4". </p><p> Prov: Private Collection, by descent in the family having been acquired in New York ca. 1935-40. Exhibited in "William Merritt Chase: Master of American Impressionism", Spanierman Gallery, New York, November 2, 1994 - January 31, 1995, No. 5, Moore`s Art Galleries, New York, "Paintings by Mr. Willliam M. Chase", March 2-3, 1887, No. 84, Boston Art Club "Pictures Studies and Sketches by Mr. Wm. M. Chase, of New York City", November 13 - December 4, 1886, lent by the artist. "This painting is also known by the descriptive title Lakeside Park. Chase exhibited Poplar Lake in his first one-man exhibition held at the Boston Art Club in late 1886. The dating derives from the paintings stylistic similarity to others created by Chase during this period. The poplar trees, seen here on the distant shore, are also evident in at least two other works by Chase dating from this period, Summertime (L. 60) and Pulling for the Shore (L.53). These scenes are thought to depict areas of Brooklyn where Chase and his wife, Alice, lived at the time. There is no record of a "Poplar" lake in New York or New Jersey - perhaps there was one at the time that has since come to be known by a different name or Chase might have coined the name himself."</p><p> "William Merritt Chase; the complete catalog of known and documented work by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)"/ Ronald G. Pisano; completed by D. Frederick Baker, v. 3 Landscapes in oil. </p><p></p><p>Born in 1849 in Ninevah, Indiana, William Merritt Chase studied in Indianapolis and then traveled to New York to study at the National Academy of Design. After his six year expedition in Munich, Chase returned to New York where he began incorporating much more vivid and vibrant colors into his works in attempts to depict emotion in landscapes and city scenes through his Impressionist works. Although William Merritt Chase considered himself a realist, he attested that Impressionism allowed for more means of conveying emotions. Throughout his time in New York, which is where he spent the rest of his life working, he focused on both rural and urban studies juxtaposed with the occasional inclusion of light, color and brushwork. </p><p></p><p> Condition: Inpainting in the sky along the upper edge where damaged by former frame rabbet. Tiny scuff in the center of the water near the shoreline. Minor surface abrasions scattered. The frame is newer, probably ca. the Spanierman exhibition in 1995. </p>")
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97,686
to
162,809 (GBP)
Aspire Auctions
2 Sep 2010
[more]
|
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78,148
to
97,686 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
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![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/33875/2798144/2017-2010816122756_small.jpg "<p>STUDIO OF ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU, OIL ON CANVAS, 51" X 31", "LA PETITS MARAUDEUSES": Initialed "WB" in lower right; 51" x 31 1/2"; gilt frame. </p>")
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65,124
to
97,686 (GBP)
DuMouchelles
17 Sep 2010
18 Sep 2010
19 Sep 2010
[more]
|
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52,099
to
78,148 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
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|
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52,099
to
78,148 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
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|
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52,099
to
78,148 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
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48,843
to
65,124 (GBP)
Skinner Inc
14 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
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45,587
to
65,124 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/15-2010827101131_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Ker-Xavier Roussel, 1867-1944 </p><p></p><p>Title: Satyr Chasing a Woodland Nymphette </p><p></p><p> Figure with extended arms chasing another figure with extended arms in a heavily wooded setting. 9 7/8" Tall by 12" Long, oil on canvas, signed lower right, K. X. Roussel. The artist was a well known member of the Nabi group of French Post Impressionists, the brother in law of Edouarde Vuillard and a fellow Nabi artist friend, Pierre Bonnard. This painting was acquired from The Schweitzer Gallery of New York in December of 1963.Markings on the back of the frame include 4307 and P329. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $45,000 </p>")
|
|
45,587
to
58,611 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/18-2010827101144_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Pierre Bonnard </p><p></p><p>Title: Landscape St. Tropez </p><p></p><p> A single female figure is standing on the famed beach in front of a hillside or balcony, there is a picket fence in the foreground, low trees and rooftops with a mountain and blue sky in the background. 20 1/2" Wide by 12 1/2" Tall, oil on canvas, signed Bonnard and dated 1925. Bearing an old label of Fine Arts Associates of NYC and traces of other labels. Fine Arts Associates tag reads 41 E. 57th St., NY, 22 NY, Pierre Bonnard, Landscape. St. Tropez, Oil, 1925, Hays storage tag no. P-3392/1, illegible pen writing on stretcher and partial label on brace. On the invoice from Fine Arts Associates, dated June 22, 1956 is the notation that this painting comes from an American private collector who acquired it directly from the artist. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $30,000 </p>")
|
|
39,074
to
58,611 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/25-2010827101210_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Camille Pissarro 1830-1903 </p><p></p><p>Title: The Artists Mother or Lady In Bed Reading </p><p></p><p> A classic drawing of a reclining lady reading in bed. The family notes that this may be the artists Mother. 17" Long by 10" Tall, Pencil on Paper, signed lower left C. Pissarro. Purchased from San Salz In New York City, penciled on the back is Mr. Albert K. Chapman, no. 1203 in two places. Notes on invoices note that this is the artists mother. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Very Minor Fading </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $30,000 </p>")
|
|
39,074
to
58,611 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/343/2800060/662-2010831123624_small.jpg "<p><B>David Davidovich Burliuk</B> New York /Ukraine (1882-1967) </p><p> NEW YORK STREET SCENE, circa 1944 </p><p> oil on canvas, framed, signed: lower right </p><p> H48" W34" </p>")
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|
39,074
to
58,611 (GBP)
Charlton Hall Galleries, Inc.
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
50,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Piano Auctions Ltd.
9 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
50,000
to
70,000 (GBP)
Gorringes
8 Sep 2010
9 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/29-2010827101220_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: E. Othon Friesz </p><p></p><p>Title: Bright Landscape with House </p><p></p><p> Showing several tall trees along a road with buildings in the background. 29"Long by 24" Tall, Oil on Canvas, signed E. Freisz, dated 1901 lower right. Original label from M. R. Schweitzer Gallery no. 4892 and dated 1901. Old Schweitzer label has stock number LE 5-5430, title Bright Landscape with House, E. Othon Friesz, 1901. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $25,000 </p>")
|
|
32,562
to
48,843 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/31-2010827101235_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Gustave Loiseau, 1865-1935 </p><p></p><p>Title: A View From The Artists Studio Window </p><p></p><p> A view from the artists studio shows a flower on the ledge from his Paris studio. Showing The Seine, Isle St. Louis at the right. 21 1/4" Wide by 25 1/2" Tall, Oil on Canvas. Signed G. Loiseau lower right. Originally purchased from the M. R. Schweitzer Gallery of New York City in December of 1958, still retaining the label of no. 3548. Signed and dated 1925. The bills refer to this as being a view of the roof tops of Paris from the artists studio. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $25,000 </p>")
|
|
32,562
to
48,843 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/20-2010827101154_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Anthony Thieme </p><p></p><p>Title: Entrance Magnolia Gardens In Spring Charleston, S. C. </p><p></p><p> A donkey cart is shown under the wide arms of a large Magnolia tree in a curve in the road, 36" Long by 30" Tall, Oil on Canvas, signed lower left A. Thieme. Purchased in 1947 From Grand Central Art Gallery In New York, notation on back shows old price of $1,000 and C-30 in Circle. There is an old exhibition label missing. Old chalk writing is 179B-2. The artists original title is written on the back canvas Entrance to Magnolia Gardens In Spring, Charleston, S. C. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $25,000 </p>")
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|
32,562
to
45,587 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
50,000
to
100,000 (GBP)
Duke's
23 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
50,000
to
100,000 (GBP)
Duke's
23 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
32,562
to
45,587 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
32,562
to
45,587 (GBP)
Skinner Inc
14 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
50,000
to
80,000 (GBP)
TimeLine Auctions Limited
9 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/34635/2799833/8-2010820123140_small.jpg "<p>Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) "Enfants Jouant a la Balle". Ten color lithograph, ca. 1900, "Renoir" in the image at the lower right, published by Ambrose Vollard, printed by Auguste Clot, Paris, ed. 200, on watermarked MBM paper, the image size apprx. 23-3/8" x 20-1/8", the paper size apprx. 27-1/4" x 24-1/4", matted and framed under plexiglass overall apprx. 41-1/4" 37-3/4". (Delteil 32) Galerie Maximillian tag verso. </p><p></p><p> Condition: Minor discolorations in the margin from former matting; line of discoloration from former matting along the top and right edge of the image. Overall very good condition. Hinged to a rag board with linen tape. </p>")
|
|
32,562
to
39,074 (GBP)
Aspire Auctions
2 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
40,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Woolley & Wallis
8 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
26,049
to
32,562 (GBP)
Skinner Inc
14 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
40,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Dreweatts Donnington Priory Salerooms
14 Sep 2010
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
40,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Mellors & Kirk
9 Sep 2010
10 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
40,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Dreweatts Donnington Priory Salerooms
14 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/30-2010827101232_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Emile Bernard </p><p></p><p>Title: La Poulda, 1899 </p><p></p><p> Scene shows geese on a hillside above a village with trees and tall mountains in the background. 24" Wide by 18" Tall, Oil on Canvas, signed lower right G. Loiseau. 2 labels from M. R. Schweitzer Gallery, one with typed notation of Village De Pont Aven, 1 Mai 1889 by Emile Bernard. Executed Just Prior to His 21st. Birthday. no. 3637, 21, 39. Not signed but a letter signed by the artist son accompanies this painting. This painting was purchased by Dr. Chapman from M. R. Schweitzer in October of 1961. A notation on the bill states that this came from the collection of Ernest Paulin Tasset, a sculptor. This painting was exhibited at The Arts Council of Great Britain, 4 St. James Square, London, SW1, Telephone Whitehall 9737. Exhibition: Gaugain and the Pont-Aven Group, cat. No. 93, Artist Emile Bernard, Title, Pont-Aven, Owner, M. R. Schweitzer Gallery. numbers of Ac93 3637, 6295/16 and on tape in the corner 39. At the time of the exhibition, the lender was the M. R. Schweitzer Gallery of New York. The son`s statement translates as "The undersigned Michel-Ange Bernard Fort certifies that this painting (unsigned) is truly the hand of my father painted in Brittany in 1889. (signed) Paris 29 March 1961 Michel-Ange Bernard Fort son of the painter Emile Bernard. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $20,000 </p>")
|
|
26,049
to
39,074 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1105-201092113644_small.jpg "<p>BRIAN SHIELDS "BRAAQ" (1951-1997), Liverpool with Children by a red brick wall, oil on board, signed Braaq and dated (19)75, 15 1/2" x 38 3/4", framed Provenance: the vendor was a close friend of Brian Shields and obtained the picture direct from the artist. There is an accompanying photo of the artist given by him to the vendor. Brian Shields was born in Liverpool in 1951 and many of his paintings are based, in a humorous way, on his childhood memories of the city and he frequently painted himself as a boy wearing a striped jumper. His nicknames at school were Braaq and Tufti. In this picture "Tufti" is part of the wall graffiti, with the artist sitting on the wall and his sister Ann wearing a white dress. The boy knocked down on the pavement was also meant to represent the artist who confessed to the vendor that he returned home late one night "a little worse for wear" and decided to finish the picture not realising he had already depicted another "signature figure"\lang1033\f1 </p>")
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|
36,000
to
8,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
35,000
to
6,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
22,793
to
29,306 (GBP)
Neal Auction Company
11 Sep 2010
12 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/33875/2798144/2134-2010816123239_small.jpg "<p>49.41CT. & 47.16 CT. AQUAMARINE & 13.50 CT. DIAMOND BUTTERFLY BROOCH, H 3", W 4": Diamonds vs-1, Vs-2 clarity. 18kt white gold. Total weight 65.2 grams. </p>")
|
|
22,793
to
26,049 (GBP)
DuMouchelles
17 Sep 2010
18 Sep 2010
19 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
34,500
to
5,500 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1071-201092113513_small.jpg "<p>BRIAN SHIELDS "Braaq" (1951-1997), The Bandstand, oil on canvas, signed and inscribed "Ann", 17 1/2" x 23 3/4", gilt frame </p>")
|
|
34,000
to
6,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1082-201092113535_small.jpg "<p>BRIAN SHIELDS "Braaq" (1951-1997), "Isn`t it good when you`ve got money", oil on canvas, signed Braaq and inscribed "Ann", inscribed with title by another hand verso, 17 1/2" x 23 3/42, framed </p>")
|
|
34,000
to
6,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1216-201092114135_small.jpg "<p>A SET OF EIGHT OAK DINING CHAIRS by Robert "Mouseman" Thompson including two elbow chairs, the tapering square open backs with pierced lattice splats, padded cow hide seats, on faceted turned front supports and block feet joined by an H stretcher, carved trademark in relief </p>")
|
|
33,500
to
4,500 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1226-20109211427_small.jpg "<p>AN ADZED OAK SIDEBOARD by Robert "Mouseman" Thompson of canted oblong multi panelled form, moulded edged top with ledge back, three central drawers with turned wood handles flanked on either side by a cupboard door with wrought iron latch and hinges, raised on faceted turned feet, carved trademark in high relief, 72" x 18 1/4" x 32", together with a receipt of purchase dated 1967 </p>")
|
|
33,500
to
4,500 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/1257-201092114334_small.jpg "<p>AN IRISH MAHOGANY CARD TABLE, mid 18th century, the rounded oblong folding top relined in green baize, shaped frieze carved with acanthus scrolls on a punched ground and centred by a lion mask in high relief facing to dexter, acanthus carved cabriole legs and lion paw feet, 33" x 18" x 28 1/4" </p>")
|
|
33,000
to
5,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/999-201092122653_small.jpg "<p>ATTRIBUTED TO SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE P.R.A. (1769-1830), Portrait of Lady Inglis, daughter and heir of Mr George Wilson, second wife of Sir Hugh Inglis of Milton-Bryan, Bedfordshire, seated, half length, wearing a black dress, lace ruff collar and white hat with a gold locket and chain, oil on canvas, unsigned, inscribed with artist name on a plaque attached to the frame, and label with details of sitter verso, 30" x 25", gilt frame The sitter was also the stepmother of Sir Robert Henry Inglis M.P. for Oxford University. Sir Hugh Inglis, 1st Baronet, was grandson of Robert Inglis M.P. for Edinburgh and youngest son of Robert Inglis Esq Procurator Fiscal. He was created a Baronet on 6th June 1801 and died 11th August 1820 </p>")
|
|
33,000
to
5,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10009/2800089/45-2010921220_small.jpg "<p>ATTRIBUTED TO REGINA GOLDSCHEIDER, Vienna, early 20th century, a polychrome painted terracotta figure of a young fisherboy, 47 1/4" high, on an ebonised wooden stool, trademark plaque verso The Goldscheider firm was founded in 1885 by Friedrich Goldscheider in Vienna. He recognised the importance of the orientalist movement at that time and decided to create a particular style of oriental terracotta sculptures. The models were designed by renowned artists including Arthur Strasser and portrayed the physical characters and the emotions of North African and African American subjects. Friedrich died in Nice in 1897 and his wife Regina took over the business introducing the company trademark in 1900. The firm went into liquidation in 1984. </p>")
|
|
33,000
to
5,000 (GBP)
Hartleys
15 Sep 2010
16 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
30,000
to
50,000 (GBP)
Bloomsbury Auctions (London)
23 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
30,000
to
60,000 (GBP)
Duke's
23 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
|
|
30,000
to
50,000 (GBP)
Duke's
23 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/35175/2800038/33-2010827101243_small.jpg "<p>Artist Name: Anthony Thieme </p><p></p><p>Title: Figures At Wharf side with Sailboats In Background </p><p></p><p> Adults and children are shown at the wharf side with sailboats in the harbor ready to travel. 20" Long by 16" Tall, signed lower right A. Thieme. Old label from Geo. H. Brodhead Fine Arts Rochester, NY. With number of MC19. </p><p></p><p>Condition: Excellent </p><p></p><p>Opening Bid $15,000 </p>")
|
|
19,537
to
32,562 (GBP)
John W. Coker Ltd.
15 Sep 2010
[more]
|
|
![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10059/2800046/698-201082714228_small.jpg "<p>William James Blacklock (1816-1858), an oil on canvas, "Blea Tarn and The Langdale Pikes". 17.5 ins x 23.25 ins, signed and dated 1854. . </p><p></p><p>William James Blacklock 1816-1858</p><p>THE LANGDALE PIKES ABOVE BLEA TARN</p><p>1854</p><p>It is no exaggeration to say that William James Blacklock is one of the great landscape painters of the nineteenth century, and perhaps the most remarkable of all of those who devoted themselves to the representation of the Lake District. He is less well known than he should be – the modern ‘rediscovery’ of the artist commenced in 1974 with an insightful article in Country Life by the late Geoffrey Grigson (‘A Painter of the Real Lakeland’, 4 July 1974, pp. 24-26), and was carried forward in a ground-breaking exhibition at Abbott Hall in Kendal, organised by Mary Burkett in 1981 – but on other occasions he has been omitted from landscape surveys, perhaps because of the very individuality of his work which makes them difficult immediately to characterise or readily to place in conjunction with those of his contemporaries. Nonetheless, Blacklock is a most fascinating and rewarding artist, who in the last half-decade or so of his tragically short life painted a small handful of masterpieces which serve as a testament to his deep love and knowledge of Cumberland and the English Lakes.</p><p>The Blacklock family had been long established in the neighbourhood of Cumwhitton, to the south west of Carlisle, farming there at least since the 1500s. W.J. Blacklock’s father was in fact living in London, where he made his living as a bookseller and publisher, at the time of the painter’s birth, but returned to Cumberland in 1818. The younger Blacklock’s career as an artist commenced when he was apprenticed to the Carlisle engraver and lithographer Charles Thurnham, with whom he later collaborated on a series of prints showing the railway line between Newcastle and Carlisle. W.J. Blacklock enrolled for a period at the Carlisle Academy of Arts, prior to its closure in 1833, working under Matthew Ellis Nutter. In 1836 he returned to London, then aged twenty, living there for the following fourteen years. How he occupied himself at this stage is not known, nor is it clear whether he could rely on the sale of works for a livelihood. Works by him – generally showing north-country landscapes – were exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution. Clearly he gained some reputation on the metropolitan artistic scene, as his landscape paintings were commented upon enthusiastically by J.M.W. Turner, David Roberts and John Ruskin. </p><p>Much concerning Blacklock’s career, and especially the question of his contact with other artists, is a matter of speculation. His name is largely absent from the diaries, correspondence and memoirs of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, the members of which were in any case much younger than him, but Blacklock would certainly have seen early works exhibited by members of the group and their associates. We know that he was in contact with William Bell Scott, headmaster of the Government School of Design in Newcastle, and who was in turn a close friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was almost certainly by Scott’s introduction or recommendation that Blacklock built up a circle of patrons in the North East. Scott and Rossetti may have hoped to meet Blacklock on the occasion of a walking tour they made together from Newcastle to Carlisle in June 1853. Scott, who like Rossetti was a poet as well as a painter, seems to have recorded a vain attempt to visit the painter in a poem entitled ‘An Artist’s Birthplace’, published in 1854. The verse describes the arrival of two men at the cottage home of a painter who may clearly be recognised as Blacklock: </p><p>A fit place for an artist to be reared;</p><p>Not a great Master whose vast unshared toils,</p><p>Add to the riches of the world, rebuild</p><p>God’s house, and clothe with Prophets walls and roof,</p><p>Defending cities as a pastime – such</p><p>We have not! but the homelier heartier hand</p><p>That gives us English landscapes year by year.</p><p>There is his small ancestral home, so gay,</p><p>With rosery and green wicket. We last met</p><p>In London: I’ve heard since he had returned</p><p>Homeward less sound in health than when he reached </p><p>That athlete’s theatre, well termed the grave</p><p>Of little reputations. Fresh again</p><p>Let’s hope to find him.</p><p></p><p>The verse corroborates what sparse biographical information we have for the painter (and which derives principally from an article in the Glasgow Evening News, 25 July 1900, entitled ‘An Artist’s Career’ and contributed by Edward Pennington presumably on the basis of information received from the artist’s family, despite forty-two years having passed since his death): the painter had returned to Cumberland because his health was deteriorating, probably as a result of syphilis, but also – according to Scott’s account – because of the professional frustrations and commercial pressures that went with trying to work as an artist in London. In 1850 Blacklock seems to have engaged in a last determined bout of activity as a landscape artist, perhaps fearing that he had not many years remaining to him and wanting to put together a group of works in which his particular artistic principles were to be defined. This small corpus – consisting of views in the Lakes and countryside around Cumwhitton, and all made in a period of about four years – serve as his lasting memorial. Paintings such as Devock Water (Abbott Hall, Kendal), of 1853, and Catsbells and Causey Pike (Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle), of 1854, represent timeless images of particular places which speak of the painter’s love for the landscape that he was representing. </p><p>The present view is of the Langdale Pikes, seen beyond Blea Tarn, and therefore from a vantage-point looking towards the north west, and with the direction of afternoon light from behind the artist’s left shoulder. A shoreline of purple heather and strewn boulders forms the foreground, with a brown-coated fisherman on the left side. E. Lynn Linton, in his book The Lake Country (1864), used an engraving of the same view by W.J. Linton to head his chapter ‘Langdale and the Stake’, describing in his text the mountains seen from this vantage-point at ‘the back of Blea Tarn’: ‘the highest to the right is Harrison Stickle, that to the left Pike o’ Stickle, and the long sweep to the right of Harrison Stickle is Pavey Ark, in the cup or lip of which lies Stickle Tarn’. Harriet Martineau in her 1855 Complete Guide to the English Lakes invoked the place as the scene of one of Wordsworth’s Excursions to dwell upon the Solitary, and also described the remoteness of the location and the ‘very rough road [that] scrambles up from Langdale, by Wall End, to the upland vale where the single farmhouse is, and the tarn’.</p><p>The atmospheric effect of the painting is beautifully observed, with the forms of the mountain partly suffused in shadow but with other areas brightly lit as cloud shadows sweep over, and with clefts and exposed rock faces recorded with painstaking attention. Blacklock’s particular mastery in the treatment of mountain landscapes depended in great part on his understanding of the constantly fluctuating quality of light, and here especially the scale and structure of the distant ranges are given volumetric expression by the graduated fall of light. Thus the mountain range seems both massive and distant, but at the same times almost tangible and lending itself to close and detailed scrutiny. Martineau commented on a similar optical ambiguity whereby ‘the Langdale Pikes, and their surrounding mountains seem, in some states of the atmosphere, to approach and overshadow the waters [of Windermere]; and in others to retire, and shroud themselves in cloud land’.</p><p>Blacklock did not work directly from the motif but instead drew landscape sketches in watercolour which later formed the basis of his studio compositions, or perhaps worked largely from memory. He may in addition have used photographs – probably daguerreotypes which in the 1850s were beginning to be made available by commercial photographers – to remind himself of the broad outlines of his chosen subjects (as may be suggested by the way he treats shadows in his paintings, which sometimes seems reminiscent of photographic images). He did not seek the kind of literal transcription of the forms of the landscape that artists influenced by Ruskin attempted in the period, but sought a quintessential representation of topographical type which might be recognised as a timeless record of a hallowed place, treated with an extraordinary intensity of vision. The Langdale Pikes seem to have had a particular hold on the artist’s imagination, as he painted the range on a number of occasions and from different vantage-points. An earlier work showing Blea Tarn and the Langdale Pikes of 1852 is in the collection of a descendant of the artist, while a painting entitled Esthwaite Water and the Langdale Pikes (although in fact showing Elter Water) was commissioned by William Armstrong [later Lord Armstrong, the Newcastle industrialist and arms manufacturer whose house Cragside near Rothbury was built by the architect Richard Norman Shaw] in 1855. </p><p>Clearly the Lakeland landscape was enormously important to Blacklock. All his exhibited works were of northern settings, and we may be sure that even during the years that he spent in London he will have made frequent visits to Cumberland, and that he believed himself to have as his essential purpose the representation of a beloved North. Analogy may be made between Blacklock and other European artists who like him felt it was their mission to explore and describe a landscape setting which they had known from earliest childhood, feeling such close personal identity with those places as to amount to obsession. His near contemporary Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) never tired of painting landscape and country life subjects set in Ornans in the Jura Mountains of eastern France, and created an extraordinary and indelible imagery of that region. Likewise, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) painted series of views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire in his native Provence so as to capture the essential identity of a topography that was to him living and imbued with vital and personal associations. These were all painters for whom the intimate knowledge and long contemplation of a specific locality was a vital requirement for an art to be vital and true, and who found themselves in the representation of places with which they had long association, as if the landscape forms, light and air, which were the object of their art, retained some kind of subliminal resonance of the pattern of their own lives.</p><p>Blacklock’s last extraordinary surge of creativity was sadly short lived. By the time the present work was painted, he was seriously afflicted by symptoms of the disease that would kill him. In the first place, he suffered from an inflammation of the eyes that would in due course make him partially blind. In November 1855, having become increasingly erratic in his patterns of behaviour, he was placed in the Crichton Royal Mental Institution in Dumfries, and where he died on 12 March 1858 as a result of ‘monomania of ambition and general paralysis’. Interestingly, the Crichton hospital, under the direction of Dr William Browne, had recently introduced therapies to attempt to aid their deranged inmates including drawing, as happened also at the Royal Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane in London during the time that Richard Dadd was incarcerated there, so Blacklock was able intermittently to continue at least to draw to the end of his life. A number of landscape sketches made at the Crichton are reproduced in Maureen Park’s book Art in Madness – Dr W.A.F. Browne’s Collection of Patient Art at Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries, Dumfries, 2010.</p><p>The Langdale Pikes above Blea Tarn was painted for the artists’ colourman Charles Roberson, probably to a commission and as a pendant to another work of 1854, The Miller’s Homestead (private collection). Whatever professional difficulties Blacklock may have faced in the years that he lived in London, in the 1850s, after his return to Cumwhitton he began to find himself sought after by a small but discriminating circle of patrons. Roberson himself was a significant figure in the establishment of a progressive school of painting in the middle years of the century, because he supplied artists with a range of new and stronger pigments, often derived in their manufacture from industrial processes, and thus aided the move towards more brightly coloured works which was a characteristic of English painting in the period. A degree of rivalry seems to have come about between Blacklock’s would-be patrons, chronicled in the letters that the artist wrote to the Gateshead metallurgist James Leathart (now held as part of the Leathart Papers, University of British Columbia). Roberson’s two paintings are referred to in a letter to Leathart of 2 June 1854, ‘one the same lake as I am going to do for Mr Armstrong – the other a Millers Homestead – the mill looking over a moor & distant hills they are for Mr Roberson the artists colourman’. In September 1855, just weeks before his final incarceration, Blacklock sent off the Lakeland views that he had made for Armstrong and Leathart, and in doing effectively concluded his professional career.</p><p>Blacklock is an important and intriguing figure who may be regarded both as a pivot between the early nineteenth-century landscape school and the achievements of Romanticism, and the earnest and obsessive innovations of the Pre-Raphaelite landscape school. Perhaps a vital factor in our understanding and appreciation of the particular character of Blacklock’s art is his knowledge of historic schools of painting. Living in London in the late 1830s and 40s he would have had the opportunity to study the works in the National Gallery. It has been suggested that it was the unveiling of works long concealed under layers of discoloured varnish as a result of Charles Eastlake’s cleaning programme of in the mid-1840s that prompted Blacklock to adopt brighter and more luminous colours. A further possibility is that he made a European tour at some point, seeing for himself works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and also perhaps making contact with working artists in France or Italy. Only the slightest indication survives of Blacklock’s interest in the work of the Old Masters – in a letter to Leathart of 20 September 1854 he looks forward to hearing about the works of art that the latter had seen in the course of a Continental tour. Nonetheless, broad stylistic analogies may be drawn between the landscape paintings of Blacklock and those of other British artists who had visited Europe in their formative years. William Dyce, for example, who had visited Italy in 1825-26 and there made contact with the German Nazarene painters in Rome. Something of the clarity of light and simplicity of expression, along with a particular feeling for colour effects which are peaceful and never strident, that characterises Dyce’s pure landscapes, is also infused into the less well known works of Blacklock, and may perhaps likewise be indebted to a knowledge of European schools of painting.</p><p></p><p>Christopher Newall</p><p></p>")
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![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/33875/2798144/2022-201081612288_small.jpg "<p>HENRI LEBASQUE, [FRENCH 1865-1937] OIL ON CANVAS 15" X 18" ST TROPEZ: Framed. Depicts a yacht and sailboats St. Tropez. French shipping labels on stretcher. Measures 15" x 18&1/2". From the Collection of Dr Coleman and Shirley Mopper, Bloomfield Hills, Mi. </p>")
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![](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/343/2800060/663-2010831123626_small.jpg "<p><B>William Robinson Leigh</B> New York (1866-1955) </p><p> A ROCK ON THE LUKENIA HILLS </p><p> oil on canvasboard, framed, unsigned and verso with old gum label with title </p><p> H12" W16" </p>")
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