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Lot 367
A pair of Cornish serpentine wall brackets by Stevens of Wherrytown, Penzance. Height 14cm.'THE STEVENS FAMILY OF WHERRYTOWN, PENZANCE IN THE 19TH & 20TH CENTURIES''My maternal grand-mother, Mahala Brown, came down to Penzance with her family from Matlock in Derbyshire, 1850. At that time, the railway ran only as far as Bristol, from there they had to take a ferryboat to Hayle, doubtless an arduous journey which the family never forgot.Mahala's father, Joseph Brown, was a skilled worker in the Blue John stone which was found only in Derbyshire and was highly prized in France where it was called "Bleu Jaune" hence the English name. I believe the Blue John ran out so the family decamped to Cornwall to work with the recently discovered Serpentine at the Lizard. There was a Serpentine Works in Wherrytown which must have offered employment.They young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Mounts Bay in 1846 on the royal yacht. Prince Albert landed in Penzance and was conducted to St. John's Hall where he admired a set of serpentine vases, readily presented to him by the Mayor. Victoria & Albert subsequently ordered a number of items for Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, which immediately popularised the serpentine ware.Mahala Brown later married a former sea-captain, Charles Grenville Stevens in 1869. Legend has it that they walked in bridal dress from Wherrytown to Madron church and back. Charles gave up the sea and was instructed in the art of stone-carving by his father-in-law, Joseph Brown.Extract from The Western Morning News, Dec.17th 1984...." Joseph Brown was a skilled worder of serpentine, but he was eclipsed by his son-in-law Charles Stevens....who, within a few years, had been accepted as the finest carver of serpentine in the country. Charles had an instinctive feel for the stone and carved some magnificent ornaments on of which, a 3' anchor, circled by a dolphin, is to be found at the V & A Museum".Mahala gave birth to 2 sons, Samuel and Joseph who later learnt the skill of carving serpentine from their father and became equally accomplished. They established 2 small shops in Wherrytown where they sold a wide variety of ornaments in serpentine all turned on a treadle lathe in a shed in the back yard.Samuel married Matilda Lawry in 1898 and Matilda bore him 3 daughters. The middle of the 3, Norah Maria, was my mother and she grew up with her sisters in Wherrytown in the early years of the century. The serpentine shops continued to flourish due largely to the increase in tourism. My mother later married John Cyril Mann who became Mayor of Penzance in 1969.I was born in 1934 and as a boy, I well remember visiting the shops and workshop on many occasion marvelling at the vast range of serpentine goods the brothers had produced.Sadly, the shops and most of Wherrytown were destroyed in the disastrous storm of 1962'.David MannOctober 2020
Lot 6
Uniforms - A Post WWII Second World War British RAF Royal Air Force No.1 Dress O.A. sergeant uniform made by J. Compton Sons & Webb with British bandsman buttons to the pockets. The uniform includes a tunic, a pair of trousers and blue costume shirt. Original medal buttons are present above the breast pocket.
Lot 17
Helen Bradley (British, 1900-1979)Lady in Yellow Dress signed 'HELEN BRADLEY' and with fly insignia (lower right)oil on canvas laid on board27 x 18 cm. (10 5/8 x 7 1/8 in.)Footnotes:ProvenanceThe Artist, thence by family descentThe Estate of Margaret BradleyThis lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ARAR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
Lot 120
* ROBERT SARGENT AUSTIN RA PRWS PRE (BRITISH 1895-1973) THE BALLET DRESS watercolour on paper, signed; titled verso 52.5cm x 59cm Mounted, framed and under glass Note: Robert Austin's watercolours very rarely appear at auction, anywhere. Note 2 : Robert Sargent Austin’s talent was first recognised publicly, as a precocious eight year old, when he successfully submitted work to the Royal Drawing Society in his hometown of Leicester. His friends would later say that art became to him as essential as breathing, and this early success marked the beginning of a daily drive to draw, paint and etch that would mould him into the artistic force that he became. Natural talent led to his enrolment at the Leicester Municipal School of Art in 1909, from where he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1914. In London, serious, patient, comprehensive study of life drawing was the first discipline taught and can be singled out as the experience that most influenced his uncompromising attitude to learning and practising art. The First World War interrupted his progress; he served as a gunner in the Royal Artillery from 1915-1919, however the delay meant that he became a pupil of the famous etcher, Sir Frank Short, when he resumed his studies. Robert Sargent Austin’s career was notable for the ease with which he perfected different artistic techniques, and his etchings under Sir Frank Short were so proficient that he won a scholarship to the British School in Rome in 1921. In Rome he befriended and worked with Charles Murray (see lot 114). This was an unrivalled opportunity to be immersed in Italian artistic culture and if his methodology was formed at the Royal College of Art, then his style was most influenced by this period of discovery. Through extensive travel around the country and careful study of the landscape and paintings, particularly the prints of the Old Masters, he found a source of influence that perfectly suited his own exacting practice of art. Additionally this also convinced him that line engraving was more suited to his temperament than etching. Mastering this new technique with ease he returned to England in 1926, a married man since 1923, and took up the post of Professor of Engraving at the Royal College of Art. He held this post until 1944 and the teaching of art quickly became as important to him as its practice. Pupils remember him as tough, frightening and often brutally honest, but found him an inspirational, dedicated teacher who would devote himself to students that showed enthusiasm. He was interested only in the execution of art; when he was given his new college name-plate he hung it over his lavatory door at home, highlighting a lifelong disinterest in the aggrandisement of ‘Art’ and its multifarious pretensions. A former pupil remembers him saying “We can talk about Art later, let’s find out how to draw first.’ He was promoted to the role of Head of Graphic Design at the Royal College of Art in 1948, but turned down the position of Principal as he wanted to remain an artist not an administrator. Robert Sargent Austin’s purchase of a studio at Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk, in 1935 and the lives of his three children most influenced the content of his output. The Norfolk wildlife fascinated him (he particularly adored birds) and the landscape he found there stirred him to paint; his family remember him rising before dawn most days to capture the summer light at its purest between five and seven. The activities of his growing children, both in Norfolk and London, were his other constant source of artistic subject matter as the selection in this show demonstrates. During the Second World War he was appointed official war artist to the Royal College of Art at Ambleside and his art became temporarily dominated by the Woolwich Arsenal, nurses, fighter pilots and other workers, particularly women, whom he felt were under represented in the War effort. The Imperial War Museum now holds thirty four of these pieces. The 1940s and 50s were dominated by a series of prestigious appointments and commissions in recognition of his prodigious talent. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1948, made President of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1956 and asked to design the Bank of England’s new bank notes in the same year. In 1962 he was also elected President of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Essentially a humble man, he remained devoted to art for its own sake, uninterested in selling it or even receiving approval from others. Despite this, his pictures are now held in the collections of the Tate Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, The British Museum and The Ashmolean Museum and a huge retrospective of his work was held at the latter in 1980.
Lot 2
Yiannis Tsarouchis (Greek, 1910-1989)Woman from Salamis/ Koulouriotissa signed in Greek and dated '34' (upper right)oil on canvas laid on panel 46 x 25 cm.Painted in 1934.Footnotes:ProvenancePrivate collection, Athens.ExhibitedAthens, The British Council, Exhibition Yannis Tsarouchis 1932-1952, February 17-29, 1952, no. 13 (possibly).LiteratureE. Florou, Tsarouchis – Painting, doctoral dissertation, Athens 1989, vol. 1, p. 38-39 (discussed), p. 215 (catalogued), vol. 2, fig. 129 (illustrated).E. Florou, Yannis Tsarouchis, his Painting and his Era, Nea Synora - A.A. Livanis editions, Athens 1989, no. 140, p. 18 (mentioned), p. 21 (discussed), p. 19, fig. 16 (illustrated).Yannis Tsarouchis (1910-1989) Painting, Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation, Athens 1990, no. 48 (illustrated).Yannis Tsarouchis Painting, Comments, Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation, Athens 1990, no. 48, p. iv (discussed).A work that marks a turning point in Tsarouchis's career, as noted by the artist himself,1 Woman from Salamis conveys a striking immediacy and resilient allure. Broad planes of earthy colours highlighted by solid outlines and supplemented by highly stylised motifs, such as the clouds and the sun, build up a solid edifice of pure form, stretching beyond the confines of the transient and perfectly matching the young maiden's silent inflexibility and hieratic posture. We are reminded of Byzantine icons, Fayum portraits, Theofilos, and Kontoglou, the leading advocate for the revival of the Byzantine pictorial tradition, under whom Tsarouchis apprenticed for four years.As noted by former Benaki Museum Director M. Hadjidakis, in Tsarouchis's hands, human form takes on a monumental quality. Lightly modelled, his subjects fill the picture and are elevated to a symbolic type full of dignity and grandeur,2 capturing the genuineness of character which is the lifeblood of the Modern Greek spirit.Ever since his early childhood, Tsarouchis was enchanted by traditional local costumes from around Greece. His fascination was further heightened following his acquaintance with Angeliki Hadjimichali, Elli Papadimitriou and Eva Palmer-Sikelianou and was filtered through Kontoglou's passion for Byzantine art. He was not only interested in the art form but also in the techniques involved. He knew how to weave, cut and sew, as well as take patterns from folk clothing. Unfortunately, his entire archive of dress designs and costume details was destroyed during the German Occupation.31 Yannis Tsarouchis Painting, Comments, Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation, Athens 1990, no. 48, p. iv.2 M. Hadjidakis, 'Some Aspects of Modern Greek Art' in Perspective of Greece, an Atlantic Monthly Supplement, Intercultural Publications, New York 1955, p. 33.3 M. Karavia, The Thinker of Marousi, Memories and Conversations with Yannis Tsarouchis [in Greek], Kapon editions Athens 2009, p. 74.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ARAR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
Lot 26
Constantinos Parthenis (Greek, 1878-1967)Harmony signed 'C.Parthenis' (lower left)oil on canvas125 x 50 cm.Painted c. 1940-41.Footnotes:The artwork bears the artist's son signature on the reverse and the date 26/7 on the stretcher.ProvenanceN. Parthenis collection, Athens.Private collection, Athens.LiteratureL'Art Contemporain et le Monde Grec, Actes du XVIIIe Congres de l'Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art (AICA), Athens 1984, p. 151 (mentioned).A. Kotidis, On Parthenis, University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1984, p. 36 (mentioned).A. Kafetsi, Drawings by Constantinos Parthenis in the National Gallery, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens 1989, p. 58 (mentioned).E. Mathiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis, K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, no. 283, p. 427 (catalogued), p. 343 (illustrated).In 1939, the Minister-Governor of Athens Kostas Kotzias and Mayor Ambrosios Plytas, wishing to complete the City Hall's decoration program, decided to commission the great Parthenis to decorate the spacious southwest room on the first floor. The painter negotiated and agreed to be paid 800,000 drachmas—a huge amount for the time. Following a vote by the city council, the contract was signed on April 18, 1940, providing a period of twenty months for the delivery of twelve independent canvases. While Parthenis kept his end of the agreement, the Municipality of Athens, due to the outbreak of the Greek-Italian war and the German occupation that followed, was unable to honour the contract. After the war, in the early 1950s, the Municipality of Athens, under Mayor Kostas Kotzias, showed a renewed interest in acquiring the canvases at the cost agreed before the war. However, especially after the dramatic devaluation of the drachma on April 9, 1953, the agreed upon amount had lost almost all of its real value. Parthenis saw the proposed deal as a mockery of his work and turned it down without hesitation. As a result, the works remained in his workshop and out of public view until the artist's passing in 1967. 1Translated into evocative symbols, these highly idealised and allegorical works are absorbed in a world purified of any kind of brutality, a world that soars loftily in the heights of ideals, while their sensitive lines, translucent colours and abstractive formal vocabulary endow them with a highly poetic and spiritual content. Through a sophisticated formulation of style, which fully utilised the entire Greek aesthetic tradition while reading elegantly like a piece of undiscovered mythology, Parthenis managed to create a work of visual poetry, a world as much Greek as universal. Harmony2 is personified by a young woman in a knee-length dress and pleated cape standing on a short pedestal like an ancient Greek kore and playing the violin against a starry night sky. Her body posture and overall compositional design echo Maurice Denis's La Damoiselle élue, a 1892 work inspired by the namesake cantata by Claude Debussy and based on a text by Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.3 Once in close contact with symbolist circles, Parthenis was thoroughly familiar with the work of Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and, especially, Maurice Denis, who sought to reinvest art with a deeper, more spiritual meaning. The idealistic atmosphere of the French painter's works, and the highly stylised rendering of the human figure, had a strong impact on Parthenis throughout his career.In this evocative setting, the young violin4 player takes on an allegorical meaning, identified with the idea of music as a symbol of universal order, harmony and peace. As noted by Z. Papantoniou, 'by dematerialising form and giving shape to ideas, Parthenis creates a musical quality; in other words he lifts painting to the realm of music, the most immaterial of all arts.5 Parthenis himself was an ardent lover of classical music and, accompanied by his wife, he often attended Sunday concerts and recitals by great performers at the Municipal Theatre, the Olympia and the Kentrikon music halls.61 See E. Mathiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis [in Greek], K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, pp. 91, 97-98; A. Kotidis, On Parthenis [in Greek], University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1984, pp. 21-22; A. Kotidis, 'The Dialectic of Power in the Case of Costis Parthenis' [in Greek] in Constantinos Parthenis (1878-1967), exhibition catalogue, Vafopouleio Cultural Centre, Thessaloniki 1984, p. 43; A. Kotidis, 'The Influence of Hellenic Art in the Work of C. Parthenis', L'Art Contemporain et le Monde Grec, Actes du XVIIIe Congres de l'Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art (AICA), Athens 1984, p. 151.2 A pencil drawing in the collection of the National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens (no. 7843).3 See A. Kafetsi, Drawings by Constantinos Parthenis in the National Gallery [in Greek], exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens 1989, p. 66.4 Compare Dawn (Aurora), Bonhams Greek Sale, May 19, 2009, lot 29, and Still life with violin, Bonhams, Greek Sale, December 12, 2006, lot 85.5 Z. Papantoniou, 'The Art of Parthenis' [in Greek], Patris daily, January 19, 1920.6 K. Iliadis, The World of Art in the Period Between the Wars [in Greek], Athens 1978, p. 101.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ARAR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
Lot 86
Puritanism.- Vestments controversy.- A Briefe Examination for the Tyme, of a certaine declaration, lately put in print in the name and defence of certaine Ministers in London, refusyng to weare the apparell prescribed by the lawes and orders of the Realme, first edition, black letter, woodcut initials, title a little soiled with margins frayed and small portion of restoration at gutter, a few ff. closely shaved, affecting some text and headlines, E1-D4 with restoration and repair to upper corner and fore-margin with some loss to text, light foxing, extensive notes to rear endpapers, ink inscription in an old hand to 2*2 "The solicitours of these orders were bluddy persecutours", bookplate, 19th century roan, spotted, rubbing to extremities, [STC 10387], small 4to, [In Powles Churchyarde by Richarde Iugge, printer to the Queenes Maiestie, [1566]]⁂ Rare, we can trace no copy at auction since 1979. The vestments controversy was ostensibly concerning clerical dress but grew to encompass the notion of nonconformity in church practices. The debate reached a peak in 1566 with the publication of Robert Crowley's A Briefe Discourse Against the Outwarde Apparel of the Popishe Church to which this is a response commissioned by (and sometimes attributed to) Archbishop Matthew Parker. Provenance: Bt. at Egerton's, Whitehall, 1801 (ink inscription to foot of title); M. H. Bloxam (bookplate and ink notes).
Lot 120
Vacheron & Constantin: opal and diamond dress watchThe oval shaped opal dial in a radiating baguette-cut diamond surround, to the integrated mesh bracelet, diamonds approx. 3.40cts total, French and Swiss assay marks, case numbered 482790 P, length 17.5cmFor further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
Lot 271
CARTIER: Cultured pearl and diamond dress set, circa 1964Double-sided: Each cultured pearl of grey tint within a brilliant-cut diamond surround, accompanied by three studs en suite, diamonds approx. 1.55cts total, signed Cartier, plaque length 1.5cm, fitted case by Cartier, the tooled leather exterior initialled G.D.S and dated 23.12.64 (4)For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
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