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Lot 288
Bond (Vida, 20th century). A collection of approx. 30 original illustrations and drawings, c.1950s, including book cover designs, pen and wash illustrations, life drawings, etc., various sizes, together with numerous woodcut prints by Boyd, and a collection of ten 1930s original and printed book illustrations by H.M. Crabtree including work used to illustrate Walter de la Mare’s ‘Memoirs of a Midget’ and Mary Webb’s ‘Precious Bane’, comprising four drawings in pen and ink, charcoal and pastel and monochrome gouache, and six colour lithos. (approx. 50)
Lot 369
A CONTINENTAL GROUP OF A GALLANT AND TWO YOUNG WOMEN. the gallant in a purple coat, blue and yellow waistcoat and lime green breeches, his companions in pastel coloured costume, on floral encrusted oval gilt base, 31cm h, impressed 149X, painted crossed swords and 36, c1900. ++ The basket, three hands and waist of the central figure restored, typical chipping of the flower and petals extr,
Lot 812
John Randall Bratby RA 1928-1992- "The Black Plastic Cat Suit"; pencil, pastel and gouache, signed, titled, extensively inscribed and dated 28 February 1990, 58x42cm: together with one other similar drawing of Patti Bratby by the same hand, signed, titled, inscribed extensively and dated February 26 1990, 58x42cm., (2), (unframed)
Lot 136
Norman Cornish (1919-) "HEAD OF GIRL"-PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST`S DAUGHTER signed; with inscription and date 27th May, 1960 on a Stone Gallery label on the reverse pastel 30 x 46cms; 11 3/4 x 18in. PROVENANCE Purchased from the Stone Gallery, Brunswick Place, Newcastle in the early 1960`s for 20gns. This lot sold together with the original exhibition catalogue and a manuscript letter from the Artist, dated September 10th, 2005, confirming the identity of the sitter "Thank you for your letter that arrived this morning. You enquire about a young girl`s appearance in the publication Cornish and Spennymoor. Yes, the drawing is of my daughter which was done about 40 years ago. She would be about 16 years old in those days. She will shortly be 56 years old (on next Oct. 17th). She was, until recently, an Art Teacher at Tudhoe Grange Sen. school but has since retired. Her husband is a headmaster and they have two children. I must have made a good few drawings of daughter Ann when she was a teenager. She was after all-an interesting model. Thank you again for your letter and hoping that your question is answered satisfactorily. Best wishes. Norman Cornish". LITERATURE Illustrated in "Cornish and Spennymoor" with introduction by Michael Chaplin, University Gallery Publications 1999. See illustration
Lot 174
Alfred Palmer (1877-1951) - Pastel drawing - "Temple of Luxor, Egypt", 14.5ins x 16.5ins, signed in full in red, in grey painted moulded frame and glazed Provenance : From the collection of the artist`s daughter sold at The Canterbury Auction Galleries Autumn Fine Art Auction, Tuesday, 28th October 1997, Lot 173
Lot 216
SEREBRIAKOVA, ZINAIDA 1884-1967 Nude signed and dated 1932 Oil on canvas, 73 by 50 cm. Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist’s family. Private collection, France. Authenticity has been confirmed by Vladimir Kruglov. Exhibited: Zinaida Serebriakova, The Embassy of the Russian Federation, Paris, 1995. Literature: Exhibition catalogue, Zinaida Serebriakova, Syseca, France, 1995, p. 13, illustrated. Related literature: For similar works, see V. Kruglov, Zinaida Serebriakova, Zolotoi Vek, St Petersburg, 2004, pp. 155, 167, 168. Nude is a typical example of Zinaida Serebriakova’s work in the 1920s to 1930s – full of harmony, purity and poetry. She had by this time developed her recognisable, special painting style, which was distinguished by its free, flowing brushstrokes and its precise, clear form. The interpretation of the life model motif in this work conveys the poetics of the naked human body that the artist devoted herself to in the second decade of the 20th century. This period saw the appearance of Serebriakova’s first two versions of The Bathhouse (1912 and 1913), in addition to her sketches and studies for Bathing (1917). As was always the case with Serebriakova, the artistic image she created in Nude was distinguished by the harmony of its spiritual and physical principles and by its delicacy and lively grace. The portrayal of the naked body occupied a central role in Serebriakova’s painting during the 1920s and 1930s. From her memoirs we know that her models were Russian girls, a number of whom married around 1934 and ceased to model, thereby forcing the artist to “close” the subject. She could not afford to pay professional life models. 1926 saw the appearance of two compositions bearing the title The Bathhouse. They effectively convey, particularly in the horizontal composition, the beauty and suppleness of young women’s bodies. The vertical canvas appears more “contrived” in comparison. The artist evidently felt that girls from Russian intelligentsia families in Paris did not fit well with the image of rural Russian bathhouses, and abandoned her plan to continue The Bathhouse series. She did not wish to follow in the footsteps of Konstantin Korovin, who would on demand produce nostalgic, cheap popular print-type paintings depicting winter scenes and troikas next to inns. From then on she only worked on studies, without attempting, like Kabanel, to transform her life models into “bathers” or into heroines of ancient mythology. The principles of E. Degas and A. Renoir were closer to her heart. Her young women and girls pose serenely, lying on sheets or sleeping, coming out of the bath, towel drying themselves or relaxing in the fresh air. Constantine Somov rated these works very highly, and in his diary and letters he always remarked upon her taste and mastery of painting. Alexander Benois described them as “incomparable”. In 1927 Serebriakova created one of the most poetic nudes, featuring a sleeping adolescent girl. The girl’s pose and the angle – a view from above – bear some resemblance to Modigliani. In this canvas the artist has achieved a sense of harmony between the physical form and the space. The light colours deployed here are extraordinarily well-suited to the nature of the image. Serebriakova painted high quality nudes using both pastels and oils. Pastels were well-suited to conveying the fine nuances of light and delicate colours, and poeticised the femininity of amateur models (Nude (1929) and Nude (1932)). Her oils were more austere and more direct in their interpretation of the physical form and state of the models (Nude Braiding her Hair (1930) and Nude (1932)). Specifics of the imagery and the level of completion were also determined by the tasks that the artist had set herself – whether she was working on a light and lively study in which even an apparently misplaced stroke of pastel seemed to convey the thrill of life (Standing Nude, 1932), or studying the formal rules of form as she was painting in oil (Nude, 1932). In the early 1930s Serebriakova began to exhibit a proclivity for tackling the issues of dimension and volume, and created a lot of studies featuring standing models. This tendency cannot be linked to her personal artistic development only: around this time, Serebriakova gradually began to practice for a new commission of monumental works from Baron J.-A. de Brouwer of Belgium. After 1934, Serebriakova would from time to time return to her favourite topic, delighting art connoisseurs with such indisputable masterpieces as Nude with a Book (1940) and Nude Leaning on Her Elbow (1940). Nude Plaiting her Hair (1930) and Nude with a Book (1940), full of internal movement and featuring dreamy models, seem to be particularly potent in eliciting the quintessential “Russianness” of these girls – a feature so poeticised by the artist. Alexander Benois wrote enthusiastically of such works: “In these studies of the nude female body there lives not sensuality in general, but something more specific, something familiar to us from our very own literature, our very own music, as well as from our personal experiences. This truly is flesh of our flesh; here we see the grace, the sensuality and a certain intimacy and domesticity of Eros which is more alluring, more delicate and at the same time also more cunning and dangerous than what Gauguin had found in Tahiti.” Vladimir Kruglov, author and compiler of the monograph on Zinaida Serebriakova Dmitry Sarabyanov once shrewdly noted that the critics wishing to compliment Serebriakova would invariably muse about her “male hand”. Even Alexander Benois once referred to the artist’s works as “masculine”. Sarabyanov, however, believes that it is Serebriakova’s femininity that is the most appealing aspect of her art. It is hard to argue with him, inasmuch as this femininity “is expressed in equal measure in her art, her life, as well as in her appearance. Her whole appearance is marked by the purity of her soul, the shining of her eyes; her feelings are all so natural, whilst her motives, embodied in the paintings, reflect her clear understanding of human purpose. There is simple beauty in all of this. The artist herself seems to be translating these qualities onto the world around her. The natural beauty of life – assumed [by Serebriakova] to have an independent existence – becomes the aesthetic criterion that defines her artistic position, her opinion about herself and her surroundings.” Nude presented for the auction is one of the best, most expressive manifestations of this femininity in Serebriakova’s oeuvre. It is as if Serebriakova imbues her young model with the poetry and cordiality typical of the artist herself. In fact, Serebriakova had long before been noted for the practice of “personalising” every image, or instilling her models with a vague self-resemblance. It is true that Serebriakova’s sister modelled for her famous Bathers of 1911; however, it sometimes appears as if all the nudes of her multiple Bathhouses were painted after her sisters or perhaps the artist herself. Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, writing about this feature of Serebriakova’s works, noted that even in the artist’s portraits “there is a lot of grace and artistic revelation but… no resemblance [of the model]. In general, her por
Lot 237
SEREBRIAKOVA, ZINAIDA 1884-1967 Bathing Nude signed and dated 1927 Pastel and pencil on paper, 47 by 62 cm. Provenance: Private collection, UK. Authenticity has been confirmed by Catherine Boncenne, niece of the artist. Related literature: For similar works, see V. Kruglov, Zinaida Serebriakova, Zolotoi Vek, St Petersburg, 2004. Serebriakova’s lovely pastel Bathing Nude, which she executed in 1927, is one of the earliest in a series of portraits of a young, dreamy model who became the artist’s favourite “life model” between the end of the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. In Serebriakova’s best works of this period, we time and again encounter this same, invariably pensive girl from a Parisian Russian family. She poses lying serenely on sheets with a red scarf (Nude with a Scarf, 1932); blowing out a candle before going to sleep (Nude with a Candle, 1934); sleeping (Nude, 1927); washing herself in a bath-house, long tresses of hair over her shoulder (The Bathhouse, 1926); and rubbing herself dry and relaxing (Reclining Nude in a Light Cherry Cloak, 1934).The nuances of the way the model is portrayed vary in each case, and some of the works are less finished than others. These variations are determined by the goals Serebriakova set herself in each occasion. For example, the work presented for the auction, similar to Torso for which the same model sat and which is now in the State Russian museum, is one of the more lively and gentle studies. It is executed in pastel, which brilliantly conveys the nuances of air and colour and is so well-suited to the purpose that even the seemingly misplaced strokes of chalk all but enhance the impression of the vibrancy of life. As an artist specialising in life drawing and painting, Serebriakova occupies a special place in the history of the art of her native land. She had no systematic training, but she did possess a natural taste in relation to how to portray a human body. The young artist had her first lessons in the laws of human anatomy during a brief period of study in the school of M.K. Tenisheva and in the studio of O. Braz in St Petersburg. Her education was continued in Paris (1905 to 1906), where she made a detailed study of the Louvre collection and made sketches from works by Brueghel, Watteau, and Fragonard that had made an impression upon her. Serebriakova produced her first “female bathers” in early 1920s, thus laying a foundation to a whole series of works that would bring her international recognition. Following a move to Paris in 1924, Serebriakova revisited her avourite topic and spent quite some time doing life drawing and painting. Thus, she created another version of her renowned work The Bathhouse, featuring the same model that sat for the pastel presented for the auction. However, the artist’s principal achievements between the late 1920s and the 1930s were her studies and her life sketches in pastel and oil, in which Serebriakova refrained from attempting, similar to Kabanel, to transform her life models into abstract “bathers” or heroines of ancient mythology. She filled her albums with entire series of “nudes” lying, sitting, and standing in various poses, drawn with astonishing ease and with a fine understanding of the female body. Serebriakova herself explained her passion for drawing and painting the naked body in a letter which she wrote from Paris to A. Savinov: “I have always had a passion for the theme of the nude, and the subject of The Bathhouse was merely a pretext for this purpose, and you are right that this is ‘simply because a young and clean human body is a nice thing’. At the beginning of my time here, that is from 1922 to 1934, I had a number of acquaintances – nice young Russian girls – who would agree to sit for me. Then they would go off and get married, and after that they would no longer have any time to act as models. I did not have the money to draw and paint professional life models, and I began to content myself with drawing and painting still life instead, and also managed to find some joy of painting in this ‘quiet life’ also …”
![PETROV-VODKIN, KUZMA 1878-1939 The Skull inscribed in Cyrillic and dated `28 Feb[ruary] 1913` Watercolour, pastel and pencil](http://lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/34792/2780920/378_468x382.jpg)
Lot 378
PETROV-VODKIN, KUZMA 1878-1939 The Skull inscribed in Cyrillic and dated `28 Feb[ruary] 1913` Watercolour, pastel and pencil on paper, 31.5 by 22.5 cm. Provenance: The Lothar Bolz collection, Germany. Acquired from the above by the present owner. Private collection, the Netherlands. Exhibited: Russische Graphik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Nurnberg Exhibition Hall, Nurnberg, 22 June–28 August 1977. Moscow-Paris Exhibition, Curator V. Polevoi, Moscow, 1981. Russische Graphik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Auswahl aus einer Berliner Privatsammlung. The Altes Museum, Berlin, 2 November 1977–30 January 1978. Mit Feder, Stift und Pinsel auf Paper. 200 Blätter au seiner Berliner Privatsammlung, The National Gallery, Berlin, 22 June–4 September, 1983. Literature: W. Schmidt, Russische Graphik des XIX. und XX. Jahrhunderts. Eine Berliner Privatsammlung. Leipzig, 1967, p. 226, plate II, listed. Ausstellungs-Katalog Russische Graphik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Compilers U. Feist and G. Feist, Nurnberg, 1977, plate 144, illustrated. Ausstellungs-Katalog Russische Graphik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Auswahl aus einer Berliner Privatsammlung, Compilers U. Feist and G. Feist, Berlin, Berlin State Museum, Kupferstichkabinett und Sammlung der Zeichnungen, 1977, p. 59, plate 144, listed. Mit Feder, Stift und Pinsel, Schade, National Galerie, 1978, p. 10, plate 1, listed, and plates 78 and 154, illustrated. Catalogue of the Moscow–Paris Exhibition, Curator V. Polevoi, Moscow, 1981, illustrated. Mit Feder, Stift und Pinsel auf Paper. 200 Blätter au seiner Berliner Privatsammlung, Compiler G. Schmidt, Berlin, Berlin State Museum, Kupferstichkabinett und Sammlung der Zeichnunger, 1983, p. 78, plate 154, illustrated.
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