We found 534297 price guide item(s) matching your search
There are 534297 lots that match your search criteria. Subscribe now to get instant access to the full price guide service.
Click here to subscribe- List
- Grid
-
534297 item(s)/page
Lot 876
JB CHATTERLEY & SONS LTD; an Elizabeth II cut glass decanter and stopper with hallmarked silver collar, Birmingham 1972, height 24cm, also a clear glass whisky tumbler with hallmarked silver base mount by WI Broadway & Co, and a hallmarked silver model of an owl, perching (filled), height 9.5cm (3).Additional InformationVery minimal wear, tarnishing, light scratches but each in overall good condition.
Lot 886
An Edwardian hallmarked silver oval bowl of Art Nouveau design with pierced framework and stepped feet, Birmingham 1906, length 19.5cm, approx 8ozt/248g.Additional InformationGood gauge and of solid form, light surface scratches to the interior, tarnishing and toning throughout, general surface wear, the hallmarks are clear.
Lot 9
TAG HEUER; a gentleman's stainless steel wristwatch with white dial, three subsidiary dials and date aperture, with tachymeter outer dial and replaced canvas strap with non-Tag buckle, diameter excluding winding crown 40mm, sold with unrelated Omega watch pouch.Additional InformationTicks when wound, but no guarantee of working order, very minimal wear throughout, just a couple of light scuffs to the lugs. As detailed, sold with no paperwork or box, but presented well.
Lot 921
D BROS; a George V hallmarked silver cigarette case of small proportions, with engine turned decoration and vacant rectangular cartouche, Birmingham 1930, 6.2 x 4.5cm, approx 1.08ozt/33.4g.Additional InformationAction is tight, no ribbon to the interior, general surface scratches throughout with light springing to the case.
Lot 935
PYETR LOSKUTOV; a Russian silver cigarette case of rectangular form, with cast linear detail and applied green stone, with impressed marks to the gilded interior, 10 x 8cm, approx 5.14ozt/159g.Additional InformationGeneral wear, light scratches to body, wear to the gilded interior, missing the bands to the interior, one of the marks is slightly rubbed, heavy scratches to the green stone.
Lot 938
THOMAS HAYES; an Edwardian hallmarked silver rectangular lidded trinket box, embossed throughout with figures in various pursuits and raised on four scrolling feet, Birmingham 1901, length 13cm, width 11.5cm, height 4.8cm, approx 8.7ozt/271g.Additional InformationThere is a pin head size hole in the nose of the left figure to the lid, otherwise light tarnishing and toning throughout, general surface wear.
Lot 942
RICHARD SIBLEY I; a pair of Victorian hallmarked silver novelty pepperettes modelled in the form of eggs raised on three feet, London 1869, retailed by Thomas of Bond Street, height 4cm, approx 2.9ozt/65g.Additional InformationMinor denting, light wear to each, the makers mark is slightly rubbed, the case with usual wear, abrasions.
Lot 958
GEORGE KENNING; a George IV hallmarked silver decanter label 'Sherry', London 1820, and a further decanter label in the form of a W for whisky, with chased detail made by Walter & George Myers, Birmingham 1888 (2).Additional InformationEach with general wear and light scratches, but overall in good condition.
Lot 967
WILLIAM RAWLINGS SOBEY; a pair of Victorian hallmarked silver tablespoons with engraved initials 'H' to handles, Exeter 1850, length 23.5cm, and a further pair of Victorian Exeter hallmarked silver tablespoons with engraved initials 'EPJHW and ECEW', approx 9.7ozt/303.4g.Additional InformationLight scratches and wear, minor denting.
Lot 968
An American stainless steel mace pot modelled in the form of a wine bottle, with chain and oval decanter label with engraved initial 'M', impressed 925 sterling and 52 to base, height 9cm, approx 1.38ozt/43g.Additional InformationGeneral wear, very minor dinting especially to the top rim, light scratches and wear throughout.
Lot 969
MAPPIN & WEBB; a George V hallmarked silver desk stand, the detachable cut glass inkwell with hallmarked silver collar and hinged cover, raised on rectangular tray with a cast rim and four scrolling feet, London 1922, length 16cm, approx 4.94ozt/153g.Additional InformationGeneral wear, light scratches/tarnishing throughout, polish residue.
Lot 982
ROBERTS & BELK; a cased set of six George V hallmarked silver teaspoons of plain form, produced to commemorate the 1935 Silver Jubilee, each assayed at the six contemporary offices, 1936, approx 3.0ozt/94g, in case of issue.Additional InformationLight general wear, some scratches and tarnish.
Lot 983
FRANK COBB & CO LTD; a cased George V hallmarked silver and mother of pearl handled twelve setting fruit/dessert set comprising twelve knives and forks, Sheffield 1932.Additional InformationSome light general wear and tarnish but overall presented in good condition. Case with some scratches.
Lot 993
GEORGE NATHAN & RIDLEY HAYES; a Victorian hallmarked silver twin handled pierced bowl in the form of a quaich, pierced with scrolling motifs surrounding flowers, with two handles in the form of figures, Birmingham probably 1895, length 14cm, with a hallmarked silver twin handled bowl by Viner's Ltd Sheffield 1937. length 14.5cm, approx 5.8ozt/180gAdditional InformationGeneral surface wear, light scratching throughout, plain bowl with very minimal surface wear and light denting, otherwise both in good condition.
Lot 995
WILLIAMS COMYNS; a Victorian hallmarked silver oval dish, with repoussé decoration of mask heads and birds with foliate and scrolls surrounding a central cartouche with engraved initials P.C, London 1889, length 11.5cm, with a pair of hallmarked silver ashtrays of square form, Inman Manufacturing Company, Birmingham 1946, a further hallmarked silver pin dish with engine turned decoration to centre, G Bryan & Co, Birmingham 1946, approx 5.5ozt/171g.Additional InformationGeneral surface wear throughout, light scratches, one ash tray with marks rubbed otherwise good overall condition.
Lot 997
A TAITE & SON; a George VI hallmarked silver Kiddush cup raised on single knop stem with chased scroll decoration, height 11cm, with three further hallmarked silver Kiddush cups, including WI Broadly & Co, Birmingham 1970, approx 5.4ozt/168g (part af) (4).Additional InformationTwo cups with extensive bending / dents to rims, two examples with indistinct marks and bending to foot rims, light scratching and wear throughout.
Lot 15
Paul Henry RHA (1877-1958) Connemara Landscape Oil on canvas board, 25 x 30cm (10 x 14'') Signed Provenance: A Private Dublin Collection Dated to the early to mid-1930s on stylistic grounds, this quintessential work by Henry displays all the classic characteristics he is known and loved for. The visual emphasis is placed on the two thatched cottages in the foreground, caught in light and delineated with the warm greens that line the lake shore. To the left are several layers of undulating bog-land rendered in browns, ochres and blues as they recede into the distance. The turf mounds punctuate the composition and along with the homesteads provide a sense of human presence. Henry has applied the paint with his usual great care and the sense of freshness and clear air, which pervades the whole composition, also typifies much of the artist's work of this period. We are indebted to Dr. S.B.Kennedy whose writings have formed the basis of this note.
Lot 30
Patrick Collins HRHA (1910-1994) Lake Swan Feeding Oil on board, 35 x 50cm (13¾ x 19½) Signed Provenance: Hendriks Gallery, label verso. Born Dromore West, County Sligo, in 1910, Patrick Collins grew up in Riverstown and, later, in Sligo town but his father, an RIC constable, contracted tuberculosis, was unable to work, and died when Collins was twelve. Patrick Collins's younger sister also died and his mother, widowed when Collins was thirteen, ran a little grocery shop until her health also failed. Collins was sent at fourteen to St Vincent's Orphanage in Glasnevin and having done well at school worked in an insurance company in Dublin for twenty years. Looking back on those years, Collins told Harriet Cooke, in 1973, that he lived near Stephen's Green, and 'every morning I'd walk through it around nine, and every day it was different, and every day the whole thing has a new scene. The birds and trees, when I look at them I read them like a book. When you're interested in birds, you see bits of difference.' He read widely, attended evening art classes at the National College of Art but was mainly self-taught and, in his mid-thirties, he became a full-time artist. He had his first solo show in 1956. Collins's west-of-Ireland background not only influenced his subject matter, landscape, lakes, birds, but his sympathy for the marginalised, as seen in a masterpiece such as Travelling Tinkers [1968], can be understood in the light of Collins's own family challenges and difficulties. But what is most distinctive about Collins's work is his palette of blues and grey and grey blues and his use of a framing device or border within the work, a window, as it were, into another world. Fionna Barber in Art in Ireland [2013] sees 'the indication of a frame within a frame' as a device that amplifies 'a sense of displacement' and 'the perception of another reality within the painting'. For Collins, 'It is the aura of an object which interests me, more than the object. I see a few bottles on a table and I feel there is more than a few bottles. It is the something more I try to paint.' So, too, with this swan on a lake. It is both swan and aura and swans in Irish mythology, what Collins called 'the Celtic thing', perhaps resonate here. In Lake Swan Feeding the swan is centre, its pure white presence, amid a misty grey, blue, green lake, is recognisable, as is a group of swans, background, top right. The single swan is alone, yes. Is that swan lonely That's up to the viewer. As Peter Murray observes, 'Collins preferred to leave the interpretation to the observer, acknowledging that the viewer creates the work of art at the moment of apprehension'. Other bird paintings, Bird against the Window from 1963, for example, could be seen as an image of longing, escape and Collins himself said that his The Rook: Bird in a Tree, captured his lonely years in the orphanage. Not for Collins, Yeats's nine-and-fifty swan. This feeding swan is on its own but the feeding detail in the title suggests a swan at ease and being nourished. When Patrick Collins died in 1994 his ashes were scattered on the shore of Lough Gill. Ciara Ferguson who was at the ceremony remembered how 'We gathered at the side of Lough Gill, at the place where he played as a boy, and, as the ashes scattered, the only sound was a lone piper. Tony Cronin gave the oration. Then, suddenly, everyone turned to the sound of a frantic beating of snow-white wings as a single swan took to the air with all the drama and poignancy of, well, the free spirit of Paddy.' In 1958 Collins won a Guggenheim Award for his 'Liffey Quayside', won the Irish landscape prize in 1971, was elected HRHA in 1980, a member of Aosdána in 1981 and Saoi in 1987, the first visual artist so honoured. He was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Trinity College in 1988 and his work is in every major Irish collection. Niall MacMonagle, February 2020
Lot 31
Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) Coastal Report I Oil on paper, 76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40'') Signed One of the leading Irish artists of his generation, Donald Teskey is so well known as a superbly tactile painter of coastal landscapes, concentrated on the sea, it can be hard to credit that he devoted a considerable part of his early career to drawing. More, his drawings were of the city. When he turned to painting, urban subject matter continued to dominate. But his work, whether drawing or painting, was always dynamic, always in thrall to the rush and flow of light, wind and air through the topography of street and alley, railway and canal, and through anomalous open spaces. In retrospect, we can see his rendering of areas of, say, Milltown or Dublin 8, as, literally, urban landscapes, with for example the industrial expanses of the Guinness complex around James's St interpreted as manmade cliffs and canyons. Of Palatine descent, Teskey was born in Rathkeale, and studied at Limerick School of Art and Design. Limerick city featured in his early, exceptionally accomplished drawings, but he had long been based in Dublin by the time he was seriously drawn back to the west. In the mid-1990s, he was invited to visit the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle on the north Mayo coast. A monumental, uncompromising terrain was at his doorstep. As he observed, his paintings were built on the armature of urban structure, and for a time he did paint the structural fabric of Ballycastle and its surroundings. Besides returning often to Mayo, he also stayed at Ballinskelligs in Co Kerry and on the West Cork coast. Gradually he moved beyond the coastal infrastructure of coastal villages, piers and harbours to address the sea itself. As he put it: It was a question of finding an organic structure that allows the paint to speak. He found that structure in the elemental clash of sea and shore. The moment when a wave hits rock crystallises a dynamic balance of matter and energy. This oil is an exceptionally pure expression of the artist's fascination with that moment of impact, when you are standing down on the rocks and the vast energy of the ocean breaches the steadfast boundary of the shore. He has said that he aims to capture exactly that moment in paint. Aiden Dunne, February 2020
Lot 37
William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968) St. Anne and the Poppies Oil on canvas, 55 x 46cm (21½ x 18'') Signed; inscribed verso When Leech's parents departed their Dublin home, Wilmar, Dartry Road, for London in 1910, Leech divided his life between London and France, from then until after the First World War. During this period, he lived in Concarneau, in Brittany with his American partner, fellow artist Saurin Elizabeth Kerlin, who became his wife in 1912. However, after Leech's first visit to Concarneau in 1903, where he first met Elizabeth, he returned again in 1904, at the same time that Lavery returned to paint with his friend Milner Kite. Kite's painting style and bright palette influenced Leech, which is evident in Leech's painting 'Caves in Concarneau' with its Fauve colours. 'St.Anne and the Poppies' has echoes of this palette with the bright orange of the poppies, one of which makes a halo behind St. Anne's head, contrasted against the strong greens and blues in the foreground and background. Brittany was, and indeed, still is a religious area of France and the earliest saint associated with the region is St. Anne with L'Eglise du Sainte-Anne du Pasage, in Concarneau. It was customary to create a small altar to St. Anne in homes, with a vase of flowers and candles, as in this painting. This was a suitable subject for Leech, in his use of strident colour bathed in strong sunlight, coming from the left. Traditionally St. Anne was depicted in two main colours, red and green, one for love and the other for rebirth, as she was the mother of the Virgin Mary. The Gospel of St. James, details the life of St. Anne who was from Bethlehem and her husband Joachim, who was from Nazareth, both described as being from the House of David. Traditionally too, the statue of St. Anne usually has a young Mary beside her but in this work St. Anne has the figure of a Rabbi. This work has all the hallmarks of a later Leech, in the diagonal created by the fallen poppy on the table top, the effect of light on the glass vase and the stems and leaves of the poppy in his search for 'sunlight and shadows.' As Leech has inscribed RHA after his name, this work dates after 1910 when Leech rented a large house, overlooking the sea at Plage des Dames, a sheltered curved bay of silvery, shingled sand, on the outskirts of Concarneau. Leech continued to painted some of his best work between 1910 and 1918, before the effects of the Great War and the breakup of his marriage in 1919, which destroyed these times of happiness and hope and this period of his life. Dr Denise Ferran February 2020
Lot 48
Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980) Lobster Pots, Brittany Oil on canvas, 45 x 60cm (17¾ x 23½'') Signed In this work we are presented with a small snapshot of life in north western France where lobster fishing was an industry central to the coastal region. The traditional wicker pots used for trapping the lobster dominate the foreground of the painting. One can imagine McGuinness visiting the harbour, making sketches of the everyday rituals of the local fishing community. On this occasion the pots lie idle on the beach, awaiting their next journey out to sea. McGuinness uses a tightly cropped composition, suggesting the harbour stretching out beyond to the horizon on the left and the winding road sweeping up to the right, where a woman walks pushing a pram. A man stands behind her, facing the harbour, moving down a slipway towards the waters edge. Although the work is not dated, there are other known examples of paintings by McGuiness of the Breton landscape, such as the Les Bigoudenes in the Niland Collection, Sligo which depicts the Breton women wearing traditional tall lace headdresses of the Pays Bigouden region. This painting appeared in exhibition of McGuinness' work at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1951. Or another titled Breton Port which was exhibited in The Irish Exhibition of Living Art, 1950. While none of these works are dated by the artist it would suggest that she was working in the area in the late 1940s, early 1950s and would place this lot in a similar time frame. This was many years after her initial visit to France, when on the advice of fellow Irish artist Mainie Jellett, she travelled to Paris in 1929 to study with the cubist painter André Lhote. McGuinness was not as heavily influenced by the theories of cubism as Jellett nor did she adopt them as broadly in her own work. Throughout her career she maintained an interest in figural and representational subject matter, while at the same time introducing a heightened colour palette and broad expressive brushstrokes. In this work the colours take central importance, the surface of the painting is brought to life through the range of tones used by McGuiness, the ochre red of the sand, the dark green of the seaweed, the bright electric blue on the inside of the boat moored on shoreline. She uses thick, expressive brushstrokes, applying the paint in quick motions particularly in the sea, where the shifts in colour from white to blueish green suggest the passing light moving across the water's surface. The vertical upright form of the ship mast is mirrored in the lighthouse in the background balancing the composition and creating a framing device for the scene taking place in between. A large country house stands overlooking the harbour, diminutive next to the trees, their full blossom outlined by McGuinness with the end of her brush, scraping lines into the painted canvas. This work is an interesting comparison to the established painted imagery of the region. In particular the overwhelming religious iconography associated with the traditional Breton clothing, that so compelled the French Impressionists and early 20th century painters who visited and lived in the artistic community of the region. McGuinness focuses on another aspect of this which feels slightly more considered in its expression of everyday life. She is an observer, avoiding the tendency to mythologise the traditions of the Breton people. Niamh Corcoran, February 2020
Lot 60
Terence P. Flanagan PRUA RHA (1929-2011) View from St. Mary's (1968) Oil on board, 75 x 106cm (29½ x 41¾'') Signed and dated (19)'68 Exhibited: T.P. Flanagan Retrospective, Ulster Museum, Belfast; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin; Fermanagh County Museum, 1995/1996 (catalogue illustration, p.28). Literature: S.B. Kennedy, T.P. Flanagan Painter of Light and Landscape, Lund Humphries, 2013; illustrated p.70 St Mary's, the college where T.P. Flanagan taught for many years, is an unusual subject for him, but this cityscape is a reminder that Flanagan lived and painted in Belfast throughout his adult life, and also demonstrates his enduring interest in the structural arrangement of a painting. The short horizontal shapes of the buildings in the middle distance balance the verticals established by the two trees in the foreground, and the image is brought together in a spatially compressed and interrelated composition by the mirroring of the geometric shapes in the sky and the foreground.
Lot 62
Terence P. Flanagan PRUA RHA (1929-2011) Islands, Lough Erne Oil on board, 114 x 114cm (44¾ x 44¾'') Signed and dated (19)'71 Exhibited: Across a Roaring Hill, Bonhams Dublin, 2015. At various moments in his painting career T.P. Flanagan reduced the elements of a particular composition to a point close to abstraction but, however minimal the description of forms or the application of paint, the visual image that was his starting point always remained at the heart of the work. In the present painting the definite horizontal dashes of islands place the horizon precisely two thirds of the way up the canvas and establish tensions with the irregular rocky foreground, substantial but indistinct, and the illusory effects of light and water. Islands, Lough Erne was painted at the same period as An Ulster Elegy and Flanagan's Frozen Lake series, and the quiet minimalism of the painting evokes the complex mood and broader implications of these works, without losing its direct response to the place that inspired it. Dickon Hall, February 2020
Lot 65
Terence P. Flanagan PRUA RHA (1929-2011) Roughra Hearth (IV) (1972-3) Watercolour, 76 x 56cm (30 x 22'') Signed and inscribed with title Exhibited: T.P. Flanagan Retrospective, Ulster Museum, Belfast; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin; Fermanagh County Museum, 1995/1996; T.P. Flanagan: Painter of Light and Landscape, Taylor Gallery Dublin, 2010. The Roughra Hearth series indicate Flanagan's ability to locate an appropriate visual metaphor as a meditation on ideas, in this case the role the hearth had traditionally played in Irish rural life and its broader social and psychological significance, as well as Flanagan's own awareness of the lives that had preceded him in the cottage and their relationship with those of his own family. Roughra Hearth IV abstracts the hearth itself, emphasising the slow staining of the turf fire, and balances it with the defined elegance of the shears resting above it. Dickon Hall, February 2020
Lot 74
Terence P. Flanagan PRUA RHA (1929-2011) Gortahork V Oil on board, 82 x 113cm (32¼ x44½'') Signed Exhibited: Correspondences, Ormeau Baths Gallery, 2010; T.P. Flanagan: A Haunter of Demense and Ditch Back, F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 2010; T.P. Flanagan: Painter of Light and Landscape, Taylor Gallery Dublin, 2010. The series of paintings Flanagan completed around Gortahork in the late 1960s are often considered his most intensely dynamic works, but Gortahork V is a comparatively subdued example and the sweeping, lyrical brushstrokes are gently evocative against the gradual tonal shifts through the receding landscape. Within the Gortahork paintings Flanagan almost seems to be searching for a more gestural and less descriptive approach to landscape, as well as an increasingly complex relationship between this pictorial analysis and the viewer's expectations, with marks often passing across different planes within the picture space and even between the land and the sky, as here in the left side of the present work, creating a highly unified image. Dickon Hall, February 2020
Lot 70
Quantity of cap badges, mixture of various dates, manufactures and crowns, 19th and 20th century, to include 9th Gurkha Rifles, Royal Armoured Corps, Middlesex Regt, Duke of Edinburgh's Regt white metal brooch, Dorsetshire Regt, East Lancs Regt, WWI Royal Marine Light Infantry cap brooch (a/f), Glider Pilot Regt etc (25)
Lot 172
GROUP OF COLOURED GLASS BOOT-FORM STIRRUP CUPS LATE 18TH/ 19TH CENTURY various sizes, comprising four small cobalt glasses, a larger cobalt glass, a pair of mottled green and white glasses, a light green glass, a dark green glass, an amethyst glass, a yellow glass, an amber glass, and two teal green glasses (9cm to 16cm high) Qty: (14)
Lot 299
BRASS, IRON AND TEAK BINNACLE, FROM THE SS GOTHLAND LATE 19TH CENTURY with a brass hood, painted iron compensating quadrantal spheres, a chart tube, and side light; the interior 8in. compass dial on a gimbal ring stamped CHADBURNS LIVERPOOL, LTD. and numbered 1408 (151cm high) Footnote: Note: The SS Gothland was a 7,755 gross ton passenger steamer, built in 1893 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast as the ''Gothic'' for the White Star Line's New Zealand service. Launched on 28th Jun 1893 with accommodation for 104 1st and 114 3rd class passengers and refrigerated cargo space, she sailed on her maiden voyage from London to Capetown and Wellington on 28th Dec. 1893. She was renamed the Gothland in 1908 and converted to a emmigrant carrier with 3rd class accommodation for 1800 passengers. Her name changed between the two for the next 10 years and she was eventually scrapped in 1925 after running aground the year before.
Lot 500
ATTRIBUTED TO GIUSEPPE PIAMONTINI (ITALIAN, 1664-1742) BACCHUS AND ARIADNE terracotta (27cm high, 15.8cm wide, 15.5cm deep) Footnote: Provenance : The Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, Balcarres House, Fife, Scotland Note: Giuseppe Piamontini was a close follower, only twelve-years younger, of Giambattista Foggini (1652-1725), founder of the school of Florentine late Baroque sculpture, which flourished under the last members of the dynasty of Medici Grand-Dukes [Kader 1996]. He studied in the short-lived, but effective, Medici Academy founded by Cosimo III in Rome between 1681 and 1686. When he returned to Florence, the heir-apparent, Gran Principe Ferdinando (1663-1713), took a special interest in Piamontini, perhaps partly because they were almost the same age, and commissioned from him many sculptures, the first, when the sculptor was only fourteen. When a bronze cast of this type of group first came to light in 1974, paired with another of Venus and Cupid (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, inv. nos. 1974.18.1/2), it was attributed, though without firm evidence, to G. B. Foggini (1652-1725), Court sculptor to the Medici Grand-Dukes. But, in the light of a signature discovered on a full-size marble group of the latter dated 1711 and signed by Piamontini, this rapidly changed in favour of the latter. The present model however continued to be associated by some with Foggini, until, in 1991, a marble version dated 1732 and signed by Piamontini was discovered by Bellesi [author of the most recent publication of 2019]. While this settled their authorship, the wide discrepancy of date between the marbles is puzzling, but it may be due only to the varying demands of particular patrons for expensive renderings in marble. Whether the two compositions were born together as a pair, or one was made to match the other, remains to be determined. As to the present working model, it may be compared with one in terracotta for the Venus and Cupid in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (Schlegel 1978 pp. 154-56; Pratesi 1993, pl. 433): from the Elector of Brandenburg’s Kunstkammer in Berlin Castle, and with remains of gilding (which indicates that it had been displayed as though it were a – more valuable - gilt bronze), it was catalogued in 1930 as ‘French 18 th century’: indeed, specialists still perceive a strong French influence on Piamontini’s, as opposed to Foggini’s, sculptures, perhaps owing to some cross-fertilisation between the two foreign ‘national’ academies in Rome during his youthful training there. The Berlin group is a ‘presentation model’ in terms of its busy detailing and high finish, as is corroborated by its elegant, all but royal, provenance, whereas the present piece has the experimental look of a working sketch-model ( bozzetto ), with some parts more refined than others, notably round the back, which is not fully modelled, but hollowed out to assist in firing in the kiln. Even so, there are some ravishing details that clearly reflect modelling by hand with a stylus and the sculptor’s fingers, such as the mask and swags of laurel that are applied to the classical vase into which Ariadne is pressing a bunch of grapes: the elderly, male face is strongly characterised, but has a look of worry and effort as he supports the weight of the laurel in his teeth. The expression on this face is close to the shouting masks on the cuirasses of a set of four busts of Roman Emperors by Piamontini in the Pitti Palace (see Bellesi, 1991, pls. 32-36). The proper left hand of Bacchus is delicately modelled with angular knuckles and neat fingernails; while the strap that runs diagonally across Ariadne’s bosom has also been fashioned separately in a strip of moist clay and then applied. None of these details is blunted by the casting process, as would be typical of a reproductive terracotta. Furthermore, the ‘wounds’ at the necks of both figures are sharp, as with a real break from after the creation of the figures: this reveals that the heads and necks were never hollow, as, again, would be typical of a reproductive terracotta. Finally, the underside of the base clearly still shows the way in which it was built up out of sausages of clay, squashed down on to the work-surface, and that wedges of clay have been added underneath to raise and level the angle of the figures above while it was all still moist and in ’the leathery state’. One can see exactly the same spontaneous and workmanlike process recorded on the underside of a model created about 150 years earlier by Piamontini’s great predecessor Giambologna, in preparation for his monumental group of Florence Triumphant over Pisa in the Bargello Museum, Florence (see also C. Avery, Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture , Oxford 1987, pp. 62-67). - Lyon & Turnbull wish to thank Dr. Charles Avery, independant Art Historian and former Deputy Keeper of the Department of Sculpture at the V&A Museum for research and note on this lot. Literature: J. Cummings & M.Chiarini [eds.], The Twilight of the Medici: Late Baroque Art in Florence, 1670-1743 , ‘Addenda’, nos. 297-98 / Gli Ultimi Medici: Il tardo barocco a Firenze, 1670-1743 , exh. cat., The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit / Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1974, pp. 66-68, nos. 30, 30bis Montagu, “Some small sculptures by Giuseppe Piamontini” in Antichità Viva , xiii/4, 1974, pp. 1-19, see esp. p. 11 [cited as ‘Montagu 1974’] U.Schlegel, Die italienischen Bildwerke des 17. Und 18. Jahrhunderts …, Berlin 1978, pp. 154-56 [cited as ‘Schlegel 1978’] Bellesi, “L’antico e i virtuosismi tardobarocchi nell’opera di Giuseppe Piamontini” in Paragone , XLII, N.S., 28(497), July 1991, pp. 29-32, pls. 48-52 [cited as ‘Bellesi, 1991] Pratesi, Repertorio della scultura fiorentina del Seicento e Settecento , Turin, 1993, pp. 55-56 and Plates 432-35 [cited as ‘Pratesi, 1993’] A Kader ‘Piamontini’, in J. Turner [ed.], The Dictionary of Art , London 1996, vol. 24, pp. 696-97 [cited as ‘Kader 1996’] Bellesi, ‘Giuseppe Piamontini’, in Forged in Fire: Bronze Sculpture in Florence under the Last Medici , Uffizi and Palatine Galleries, Florence, 2019, pp. 238-41, nos.44-45; Biographies , pp. 591-95, no. 24 [cited as ‘Bellesi, 2019]
Lot 482
Two associated 19th century horn capped walking canes, one with a rounded grip above a machine-turned silver-plated collar engraved 'Walk Circumspectly', dated 1877, 1887 and 1907, thd tapering shaft carved throughout wirh a fleur-de-lis above thistle flowers and fruiting vines, 80 cm long (AF) together with a similar example, with rounded grip and applied white metal collar, engraved 'Walk in the light', also dated 1877, 1887 and 1907, 85 cm long (2).
Lot 1450
A 19th century hanging bowfronted corner cupboard, with chinoiserie decoration, the doors opening to shaped painted shelves. Width 76 cm, height 110 cm, depth 48 cm. CONDITION REPORT: The cupboard is in generally good order with no significant issues. There are numerous small paint losses which should be visible in our image. The top is in good order as is the moulded cornice. The panelled doors are not significantly warped and close in a flush manner. Both doors have stress fractures to the timbers which should again be visible on our image. The white marks you see on the image are where the paint loss is evident. In our opinion the figures look more Chinese than Japanese but you would really need to make your own mind up as to the influence. The bottom left hand corner of the piece has a small loss to the bottom moulding. The interior is light green painted. The lock is present and we have the key. The lock operates.
Lot 1597
A set of one carver arm and eight single mahogany dining chairs, in the George II style, with pierced splat backs and drop in seats upholstered in leather and raised on cabriole front legs with stretchers and paw feet. Height to top of back 103 cm, width across arms of armchair 70 cm. CONDITION REPORT: The right hand arm on the armchair is slightly loose where it joins the side rail and chair stile. Other than this the armchair is in good order and is structurally very sound with no significant issues. Seven of the single chairs are structurally very sound with no significantly loose joints. The construction of the chairs with the stretchers aids their strength. One chair has slight movement at the rear right hand side rail and stile joint and there is a small timber fracture but no loss at this point. This is a minor defect. All chairs have varying degrees of stuffing and marks around the carving on the knees and where the feet have been rested on the stretchers. There are however no significant problems with any of the chairs. The leather seats are all in good order. In our opinion the chairs could be used in their current state without the need for anything other than a light clean.
Loading...-
534297 item(s)/page