A SILVER-INLAID BRONZE FIGURE OF BUDDHA SHAKYAMUNI, PAGAN KINGDOMBurma, 12th-13th century. Finely cast seated in dhyanasana with his left hand resting in his lap and the right lowered in bhumisparsha mudra. He is wearing a diaphanous sanghati draped over his left shoulder and with folds gathering below his feet. His oval face with silver-inlaid almond-shaped eyes and a circular urna, aquiline nose, and pursed lips forming a serene smile, flanked by long pendulous earlobes, his hair arranged in tight curls rising to a domed ushnisha. The back with a long and massive tang. Provenance: English trade. Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age. Extensive wear and weathering as expected, some losses with associated old fills mostly around the base, casting flaws, foundry grit, nicks and dents, shallow surface scratches, encrustations. Naturally grown, rich malachite-green patina overall.Weight: 3,408 g Dimensions: Height 26 cmThe Kingdom of Pagan was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Myanmar. Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Bamar ethnicity in Upper Myanmar, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar and in mainland Southeast Asia. The Burmese language and culture gradually became dominant in the upper Irrawaddy valley, eclipsing the Pyu, Mon, and Pali norms by the late 12th century. Theravada Buddhism slowly began to spread to the village level although Tantric, Mahayana, Brahmanic, and animist practices remained heavily entrenched at all social strata. Pagan's rulers built over 10,000 Buddhist temples in the Bagan Archaeological Zone of which over 2,000 remain today. The wealthy donated tax-free land to religious authorities. The kingdom went into decline in the mid-13th century as the continuous growth of tax-free religious wealth by the 1280s had severely affected the crown's ability to retain the loyalty of courtiers and military servicemen. This ushered in a vicious circle of internal disorders and external challenges by the Arakanese, Mons, Mongols and Shans. Repeated Mongol invasions between 1277 and 1301 toppled the four-century-old kingdom.Literature comparison: Compare a closely related Pagan bronze figure of a seated Buddha, with a similar tang to the back (referred to as a “strut”), 34 cm high, also dated 12th-13th century, in the British Museum, registration number 1971,0727.1. Compare a related Pagan bronze figure of a standing Buddha, with a similar expression and silver-inlaid eyes, 50.5 cm high, also dated 12th-13th century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1993.235.1.Auction result comparison: Type: Related Auction: Christie's New York, 17 September 1998, lot 170 Price: USD 134,500 or approx. EUR 231,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Description: A large bronze figure of Buddha, Burma, Pagan period, 12th centuryExpert remark: Compare the closely related expression, with similar silver-inlaid eyes, and rich green patina. Note the standing pose and larger size (50.5 cm).
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A GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF CHAKRASAMVARA, LATE MALLA, THREE KINGDOMS PERIODNepal, 1520-1768. Striding in alidhasana with his consort Vajravarahi in yab-yum, the four-headed deity surmounted by a skull crown, his primary hands embracing his consort and holding a vajra and ghanta, the other ten hands holding attributes including damaru, kapala, kartika, and katvanga, dressed in a beaded loincloth, his legs flanked by two billowing scarfs, Vajravarahi wearing an elaborate skirt with skull pendant. Their faces finely incised with gently arched eyebrows centered by an urna, with almond shaped eyes, and a subtle smile.Provenance: British trade. Condition: Very good condition with expected old wear to the gilt, minimal losses, minor casting flaws, and few small malachite encrustations. The stand with few chips to the edges and natural age cracks.Weight: 1,269 g (incl. stand) Dimensions: Height 20.4 cm (incl stand)With a fitted hardwood base, probably Zitan, finely carved as a double lotus throne. (2)The Three Kingdoms period - the time of the later Mallas - began in 1520 and lasted until the mid-eighteenth century. The complete flowering of the unique culture of the Kathmandu Valley occurred during this period, and it was also during this time that the old palace complexes in the three main towns achieved much of their present-day forms. The kings still based their legitimate rule on their role as protectors of dharma, and often they were devout donors to religious shrines. Kings built many of the older temples in the valley, gems of late medieval art and architecture, during this final Malla period. The present figure seems to be rather early in the period, e.g., 16th to mid-17th century.The vision of Twelve-armed Samvara in an ecstatic, dance-like embrace with his consort Vajravarahi is one of the most exquisite subjects in Vajrayana Buddhist art. Meaning 'Wheel of Bliss' in Sanskrit, the union of the two deities is known as Chakrasamvara, as represented in this near-complete example. The deities embody the attainment of the highest yoga tantra tradition and Tibetan Buddhism's supreme ideal: the skilled union of perfect wisdom (Vajravarahi) and compassion (Samvara).Being so complex, only the very best artists were fit to undertake the challenge of casting Chakrasamvara. The task most often fell to Newari master craftsmen from Nepal who produced such sculptures for domestic and Tibetan worship. The stylistic preferences of each audience are somewhat slightly different. While many contemporaneous Tibetan examples emphasize the ferociousness of Chakrasamvara's facial expressions, here instead, a benign intimacy is shared between the deities gazing into each other's eyes. The sentiment betrays a preference in Nepal for showing divine couples in harmony, as representatives of ideal matrimony.Literature comparison:Compare a related two-armed gilt bronze figure of Chakrasamvara, Nepal, 16th century, in the collection of the British Museum, museum number 1921,0219.1.Auction result comparison:Type: RelatedAuction: Christie's New York, 15 September 2015, lot 35Price: USD 32,500 or approx. EUR 39,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writingDescription: A gilt bronze figure of Durga, Nepal, 16th/17th centuryExpert remark: Compare the related motif, gilt accents, fine casting work, and stand. Note the size (16.5 cm).馬拉王朝末年，三國時期，銅鎏金勝樂金剛像尼泊爾，1520-1768年。勝樂金剛勝四頭，十二臂，兩足，弓步。主尊頭戴五葉冠，上有太陽和新月符。主臂兩手分別持金剛杵和金剛鈴，另外兩手擁抱明妃金剛亥母。其餘各手分別持不同的法器，如三叉戟、匕首、卡巴拉碗等。脖子上掛人首做成的項鍊，雙足奮力踩踏兩個魔鬼，威力無比。金剛亥母雙腿盤在勝樂金剛腰間，，穿著花飾腰帶，佩戴著珠飾。金剛及其明妃面容表情細緻入微，眉毛微彎，微笑。 來源：英國古玩交易。 品相：狀況極好，鎏金有磨損，小缺損，輕微鑄造缺陷，少量孔雀石色結殼。底座邊緣輕微碎屑和自然老化裂縫。 重量：1,269 克 (含底座) 尺寸：高20.4 厘米 (含底座) 硬木底座，可能爲紫檀，精美雕刻雙層蓮座。 (2) 尼泊爾三國時期，即馬拉王朝末年——始於 1520 年，一直持續到十八世紀中葉。加德滿都谷地獨特文化的全面發展就在這一時期，也是在這一時期，三個主要城鎮的舊宮殿建築群形成了今天的大致規模。國王們的合法統治仍然基於他們作為佛法保護者的角色，而且他們經常是宗教聖地的虔誠捐助者。在馬拉王朝末年，國王們在山谷中建造了許多古老的寺廟，這些寺廟是中世紀晚期藝術和建築的瑰寶。目前這件造像可能來自十六世紀至十七世紀中葉。
A GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF BUDDHA, ZANABAZAR SCHOOLMongolia, 17th-18th century. Heavily cast, seated in dhyanasana with the right hand lowered in bhumisparsha mudra and the left on the lap, wearing a long-flowing robe, the hems incised with a geometric border, the serene face with downcast eyes painted with black pupils, the red mouth with a gentle smile, flanked by elongated ears, the hair in tight curls surmounted by an ushnisha with globular jewel, the base with an original seal in the form of a double vajra. Provenance: From the collection of a gentleman in London, United Kingdom, who has been collecting Asian works of art for the last 50 years, and thence by descent. Two labels, 'Antique gilt bronze Buddha on lotus base shrine. 17/18 century', 'HC21/04.75'. A lacquered inventory number '222.14.QI' to the base, indicating an earlier museum deaccession. Another inventory number, '222' lacquered to the top of the base. Condition: Very good condition with minor old wear, few nicks, small dents, light scratches, and expected casting flaws.Weight: 1,137 g Dimensions: Height 15.8 cmThis heavily cast bronze belongs to the Zanabazar artistic school of Mongolia, founded in the 17th century by Jetsun Lobzong Tenpai Gyaltsen (1635-1723). He was an important Mongolian religious figure and personal guru to the Kangxi Emperor. Zanabazar was at an early age recognized by both the Panchen Lama and Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Tibetan Lama, Taranatha (1575-1634), and proclaimed the First Jetsundamba, an honorific title. He traveled to Tibet to continue his religious instruction before returning to Mongolia in 1651, bringing fifty sculptors and painters with him in an attempt to establish the Geluk order amongst the Mongols.During his time as a religious leader of the Khalkha Mongols, Zanabazar oversaw a proliferation of Buddhist art in the region. He is especially known for his visualization and design of gilt-bronze sculpture, subsequently carried out by Nepalese bronze casters, which are widely recognized as some of the finest Buddhist gilt-bronze sculptures created.Zanabazar bronze sculptures exhibit a cohesive style testament to the vision of the great leader, characterized by richly gilt surfaces overall, finely modeled and smoothly sloping contours with embellishments limited to borders, full figures standing or seated on an elevated double-lotus base, and a minimalist aesthetic that endows the figures with a sense of stability. Auction result comparison:Type: RelatedAuction: Bonhams London, 14 May 2014, lot 209Price: GBP 20,000 or approx. EUR 31,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writingDescription: A fine gilt-bronze figure of Buddha, Zanabazar School, 17th centuryExpert remark: Compare the related pose, facial expression, lotus base, and gilding. Note the smaller size (11.2 cm).Auction result comparison:Type: RelatedAuction: Bonhams Hong Kong, 2 October 2018, lot 127Price: HKD 500,000 or approx. EUR 65,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writingDescription: A gilt copper alloy figure of Amitabha, Mongolia, Zanabazar school, 17th centuryExpert remark: Compare the related pose, facial features, lotus base, and fine incision work. Note the slightly smaller size (13.5 cm).札那巴札爾派銅鎏金佛像蒙古，十七至十八世紀。佛陀結跏趺座，右手觸地印，左手擱膝，身著長袍，面容安詳，垂眸塗黑瞳，面帶溫和的微笑，兩側是細長的耳垂，螺髻中央頂寶珠。雙金剛杵印密封底。 來源：英國倫敦紳士收藏，收藏亞洲藝術已超過五十年，保存至今。兩個標籤'Antique gilt bronze Buddha on lotus base shrine. 17/18 century'與 'HC21/04.75'；底部一個收藏編號 '222.14.QI'，表明可能來自博物館；另一個收藏編號 '222' 。 品相：狀況極好，有輕微的磨損、少量劃痕、小凹痕和鑄造缺陷。 重量：1,137 克 尺寸：高 15.8 厘米
A RARE GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF VARAHA, NEPAL, 16TH-17TH CENTURYCast striding on a nagaraja above a lotus base, dressed in a loin cloth, adorned with beaded jewelry and bangles, his left arm raised supporting the goddess Bhudevi, his face in the form of a boar with long snout and two protruding fangs, standing on a coiled snake next to a small depiction of Buddha Muchalinda. The base sealed and incised with a double vajra.Provenance: From the private collection of Angela Trueb, Somerset, United Kingdom, and thence by descent in the same family. Angela Trueb (1918-1991) was the wife of Swiss coffee planter Hans Trueb. During her childhood, she spent many years in a coffee estate in Doddengudda, South India, and later moved to India again with her husband. Trueb inherited her mother's passion for Indian religious sculptures and art. During her stay in India, Trueb invested a lot of time and energy into researching Indian temple sites and started her collection, which was later moved to her home when her family returned to Somerset in 1967. Condition: Very good condition with expected old wear, few nicks and dents, light surface scratches, and casting flaws. Very good, naturally grown patina overall. Sealed.Weight: 646.5 g Dimensions: Height 14.1 cmThe present figure depicts Vishnu as the cosmic boar Varaha telling the scene where the god prevents the earth from flooding. The earth goddess Bhudevi was captured by the demon Hiranayaksha and trapped in the cosmic waters when Vishnu took the form of a divine boar and rescued her after defeating the primeval serpent monster.Auction result comparison:Type: RelatedAuction: Christie's New York, 15 September 2015, lot 22Price: USD 12,500 or approx. EUR 15,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writingDescription: A gilt bronze figure of an animal-headed attendant, Tibet, 16th/17th centuryExpert remark: Compare the related pose, beast head, and size (15 cm)十六至十七世紀尼泊爾罕見銅鎏金筏羅訶像豬頭大聖左腿膝蓋微屈，大開步站在蓮座上，長鼻子和兩顆獠牙突出，腰圍圍裙，佩戴珠飾和手鐲，左臂高舉，托著女神布德維；脚下盤繞的蛇，一側坐著那迦龍王目支鄰陀像。底座用雙金剛杵密封。 來源：英國薩默塞特Angela Trueb收藏，在同一家族保存至今。Angela Trueb (1918-1991) 是瑞士咖啡豆莊園主Hans Trueb的妻子。童年時代，她在南印度多登古達的一個咖啡莊園度過多年，後來隨丈夫再次移居印度。Trueb 繼承了她母親對印度宗教雕塑和藝術的熱情。在印度逗留期間，Trueb投入了大量時間和精力研究印度寺廟遺址，並開始了她的收藏，後來當她的家人於 1967 年返回薩默塞特時，這些收藏被搬到了她的家中。 品相：狀況極好，有磨損，輕微刻痕和凹痕，表面有輕微的劃痕和鑄造缺陷。自然包漿。密封。 重量：646.5 克 尺寸：高 14.1 厘米 這件造像將毗湿奴描繪成豬頭大聖筏羅訶，阻止大地洪水氾濫的場景。大地女神布德維被惡魔俘虜並被困在水域中，毗湿奴在擊敗蛇怪後化身為神豬並將她救出。 拍賣結果比較： 形制：相近 拍賣：紐約佳士得， 2015年9月15日，lot 22 價格：USD 12,500（相當於今日EUR 15,000） 描述：A gilt bronze figure of an animal-headed attendant，Tibet，16th/17th century 專家評論：比較相近的姿勢、獸首和尺寸(15 厘米)。
AN EXTREMELY RARE GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESHVARA IN ROYAL EASE, YONGLE INCISED SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIODChina, 1402-1424. Superbly cast seated in rajalilasana, with swaying torso and head inclined, the left leg drawn up and the right folded in front, the left hand raised and held in vitarka mudra and the right elegantly resting on the rear of the double-lotus pedestal base with beaded rims. The front left corner at the top of the base is neatly incised with the six-character mark Da Ming Yongle nianzhi and of the period.Provenance: From the private collection of a gentleman in the United Kingdom. Condition: Superb condition with only minor wear, minimal casting flaws, minuscule nicks, and remnants of old varnish. The base retains the original sealing.X-Ray Images: Available upon request.Weight: 1,441 g Dimensions: Height 17 cmExpert's remark: The present figure was in private ownership for a long time. Until just recently, it was covered entirely by a thick layer of old varnish, which had blackened completely over the years. The six-character mark was unrecognizably hidden under this coating, and the owner was unaware of its presence. A significant portion of the varnish has now been removed to reveal the magnificent original gilding hidden below. Needless to say, this was done in a most sensitive manner, without scratching the gilding, using only pure alcohol and cotton. There are still some remains of varnish, mostly in the many corners and recesses, which may also be removed if one wishes. Prospective bidders are encouraged to study our high-resolution images in full detail. These will confirm that most of the black areas remaining are ancient varnish, under which the gilding is well preserved.The bodhisattva is wearing a finely detailed foliate tiara, a profusion of beaded jewels around the neck, arms, waist and ankles, a diaphanous scarf billowing at either side, and a voluminous lower garment gathered at the waist with a jeweled girdle and spreading onto the lotus pedestal. The face is exquisitely modeled to provide a benevolent expression with downcast eyes, gently arched brows, circular urna, and smiling lips. The neatly incised hair is drawn up into a knotted jatamakuta topped by a cintamani jewel and elegantly falling in tresses over the shoulders.Bronzes in the Tibetan-Chinese style produced during the reign of Emperor Yongle in the first quarter of the 15th century and bearing his reign mark are highly distinguished for their unsurpassed craftsmanship, overall refinement and gracefulness. Executed by the Imperial ateliers, they display a highly consistent and uniform style, which evolved out of the influence of the Nepalese artist Anige (1244-1306) at the Yuan court and the close links with Tibet established by the Yongle Emperor. The distinct Imperial style includes double-lotus bases with beaded rims and characteristic facial features with broadened outline, gently arched brows above the lidded eyes and subtle smile, all finished with great attention to detail.The future Yongle Emperor was likely introduced to Tibetan Buddhism and became interested in it around 1380, when he was enfeoffed in Beijing, and of course he had strong ties to the Mongol military elite, who were also adherents of lamaist Buddhism, so it appears that he continued to practice this form of Buddhism for the rest of his life. Certainly more works of art depicting lamaist Buddhist deities and imagery were produced during his reign period than under any other Chinese emperor, with the exception of the Qing Emperor Qianlong. For further discussion of this topic see J.C.Y. Watt and D.P. Leidy, Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China, Yale University Press, 2005.In 1406, the Yongle Emperor sent a mission to Tibet inviting the famous hierarch of the Karmapa monastery, Halima, to Nanjing, to take part in the memorial services for the Hongwu Emperor and Empress Ma. Halima first sent a tribute mission, and then in the Spring of 1407 came to the Ming court in person. There he was received with great honor, given the title Dabao Fawang (Great Precious Religious Prince) and asked to perform religious ceremonies for the Emperor's deceased parents. After his return to Tibet, Halima continued to exchange gifts with the Emperor. The Yongle Emperor also invited the hierarch of the Sakyapa to the court at Nanjing in 1413 and treated him too with great honor. Thereafter missions were sent from Sakya abbots until the 1430s. A high-ranking representative of the Yellow Sect was invited to Nanjing in 1413 and was also greatly honored and returned to Tibet in 1416 with many gifts. Gifts and missions continued to be exchanged with the Yellow Sect until the 1430s.Literature comparison: Compare a closely related figure of Avalokiteshvara, also with the Yongle mark incised to the front left corner at the top of the base, below Avalokiteshvara's left knee, at exactly the same place where it is found on the present lot, in the Norbulingka Palace in Lhasa, recorded by von Schroeder in his survey of the holdings of Tibetan monastery collections, illustrated in von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, pp. 1270-1, pl. 353D, and in E. F. Lo Bue (ed.), Tesori del Tibet: Offetti d'arte dai Monasteri di Lhasa, 1994, p. 110, no. 70. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Sotheby's London, 7 November 2007, lot 362 Price: GBP 546,900 or approx. EUR 939,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Description: A rare and extremely fine gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara, erased mark of Yongle and of the period Expert remark: Compare the regal pose, bodhisattva jewelry, smiling expression, double-lotus pedestal base with beaded rims, and near identical size (18 cm). Note that this figure has an erased Yongle reign mark.永樂款罕見銅鎏金觀音中國，1402-1424年。蓮台座面上題刻“大明永樂年製”，為明宮廷風格的作品。 來源：英國一位紳士私人收藏。 品相：狀況極佳，只有輕微磨損、極小的鑄造缺陷、劃痕和舊清漆殘留。底座保留了原來的密封。X光檢測圖片:如有需可經詢問提供。 重量：1,441 克 尺寸：高17 厘米
Three framed mixed media works on paper by Sandra Bowden, titled, " Volume I & II", "Reading II", and "Word" each signed and dated '95. Condition AS IS, some scratches and cracks to plexi shadow boxes. Sandra Bowden is an artist and painter from New York, known for her religious imagery. Bowden's work is in the permanent collection of the Vatican Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in Rome and in the Haifa Museum of Art in Israel. Overall size: 11 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. Sight size: 6 3/8 x 7 1/2 in.
Dale Silver, numbered (398/450) titled "mountain of god." The image depicts the Western wall in Jerusalem. Arguably the most important religious site in the Jewish religion, it is the last remaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple. She studied at the American Academy of Art at age 10 and has a bachelors degree in art education from the University of Wisconsin. As a teacher at the colegiate level for the past 30 years in Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Ohio she is both a role model and spokesperson for her students. Her personal projects have been on display across the country including at Walt Disney World's Flower and Garden Festival. Overall size: 16 1/4 x 13 1/4 in. Sight size: 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.
William Scott RA (1913 - 1989)Still Life No.2 (1970)Gouache on paper, 59 x 78cm (23¼ x 30¾")Signed and dated 1970Provenance: Collection of R.W. Wilson, DublinStill Life No.2 (1970) is representative of the approach to such themes painted by William Scott at this time. Over the years, Scott had explored a range of thematic subjects, from the early biblical narratives and genre scenes, to the landscapes and nudes that featured repeatedly throughout his oeuvre. However, Scott consistently reverted to still life as the primary theme of interest across his life as an artist. William Scott’s earliest still life images are relatively naturalistic, though always stylised rather than strictly mimetic. Following a series of phases of exploration, the forms in Scott’s paintings became increasingly distilled, typically based on the familiar domestic objects typical of his childhood in Greenock, Scotland, where he was born. He later moved with his family to his father’s native Enniskillen, and remained in Northern Ireland where he began his education as an artist. He continued his education at the Royal Academy Schools in London, eventually settling in Somerset. Scott was ground-breaking in creating art that combined the familiar and mundane useful object with his perspective on Modernism abstracted form.Still life has attracted artists for centuries, providing an opportunity to represent a host of significant objects. The earliest examples in western art present still life elements in religious altarpieces, particularly in Northern Europe, prioritising the potential of objects, some ordinary, others precious, to carry symbolic meaning: thus this genre provided a readable array of distinctive ‘attributes’, by which the character of religious characters could be defined - a vital visual language in an era of low literacy. Over time, still life emerged as a subject in its own right, though it continued to embody a host of readable symbols for purposes of morality, intended as reminders of the perceived wisdom at the time. In time, still life became a celebration of the ordinary, as artists began to focus on mundane objects for their own sake, to signify the familiar and to evoke nostalgia. From the late nineteenth century, towards the emergence of Modernism, the possibilities of forms of expression that challenged academic principles, provided an impetus for alternative methods of seeing: from the colours and shapes of the objects themselves, to how they could be located in space.William Scott had the opportunity to observe methods of expression through the work of artists encountered in exhibitions and art galleries, ranging from the Renaissance to the present, from Piero della Francesca to Henri Matisse, via Jean Siméon Chardin and Paul Cézanne. His visits to the United States from 1953, for his own exhibitions there, provided unique opportunities to observe the most contemporary developments and to meet some of the leading exponents as an equal – artists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman – and Mark Rothko, who visited him in Somerset some years later. Still Life No.2 (1970) demonstrates characteristics that can be observed in iconic works by William Scott, such as Still Life Brown with Black Note (1969)(1). Still Life No.2 comprises colours and forms typified by the artist at the time: a flat black profile appears suspended, suggestive of the profile of a skillet, familiar in Scott’s work. A white circular object to the left is cut off by the edge of the painting, while on the right a white jug, another form that appears in Scott’s work, is presented like a stencil against the red-brown ground. The background shows the marks of the brush, and there is a suggestion of shadows thrown by some of the objects. The slight ‘bleeding’ of paint at the edges of objects, softens their otherwise austere profiles, and indicates the hand-crafted dimension of the artwork, and introduces a human dimension to the austerity of the arrangement. The composition is spare and spacious, a marked distinction from Scott’s still life paintings of the 1950s, which featured crowded, almost chaotic, ‘table top’ images connecting the artist and viewer more closely with the domestic realities of a busy kitchen environment. The present painting reflects the more abstract and symbolic nature associated with the later works of the painter. Once he divested his repertoire of the food items (fish, eggs, vegetables) evident in his earliest work, Scott’s particular selection of items reflects his stated preference for man-made over ‘natural’ things, perhaps identifying with durability despite repeated use, over organic fragility.William Scott is recorded as commenting on his practice in a lecture delivered at the British Council in 1961 that sheds light on his approach to still life:“My pictures now contained not only recognisable imagery but textures and a freedom to distort. I again painted a profusion of objects that spread themselves across the canvas, often clinging to the edges leaving the centre open …’.(2)Dr. Yvonne Scott, January 20231 William Scott, Still Life Brown with Black Note (1969), oil on canvas, 121.9 x 183 cm, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. See Norbert Lynton, William Scott, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 2004, p.313.2 William Scott, British Council lecture, quoted in Sarah Whitfield and Lucy Inglis (eds.), William Scott, Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, Vol.2, 1952–1959, Thames & Hudson,in association with the William Scott Foundation, London, 1913, p.18.Condition Report: Very good overall conditionWe have no additional documentation, the painting was consigned from a deceased estate The edges or the hand made paper are a little scuffed in places, see images
Harry Clarke RHA (1889 - 1931)Our Lady and Child adored by St Aidan of Ferns and St Adrian (O'Keefe memorial), (1918), cartoon designed for the Catholic Church of the Assumption, Bride Street, Wexford Town A pair, Charcoal and conté on paper, 202 x 48.5 (79½ x 19) & 204 x 48.5cm (80 x 19")Provenance: From the Collection of Patrick MacEntee SCFollowing the rapturous reception of Harry Clarke’s series of windows for Honan Hostel chapel (1915–17), located on the campus of UCC – the commission which was largely responsible for propelling his stained glass career forward – individuals began to seek him out for memorial windows. Two such commissions which arrived in 1918 were for the Church of Ireland, Killiney, County Dublin and the Catholic Church of the Assumption in the heart of Wexford town; Clarke worked on both jobs concurrently and in fact on one day in September he had a meeting with the Killiney donor in the morning and the Wexford donor in the afternoon.(1) The latter was ordered by a Matilda, wife of William O’Keefe who was a merchant and maltster of Faythe House, Wexford town and the window was in memory of their second son, Lieutenant William Henry O’Keefe. William Jnr was a graduate of Castleknock College and had entered the Royal College of Science, Dublin with the intention of becoming an engineer before obtaining a commission in the Royal Field Artillery. In August 1915 he went on active service in France and was killed by a German shell aged twenty-one in May 1917 at Arras where he is buried.(2) Worth noting is that his memorial window represents one of a very small number in Catholic churches to soldiers who fell in WWI compared with a significant amount in Protestant churches. For Harry Clarke, meeting a client and visiting the location was very important so that each work would be truly individual and would respond to the wishes of the donor, as well as the more practical and aesthetic considerations: the orientation of the window within the church, its height from ground level, the style of architecture, etc. A small-scale, though very precise, preliminary design, usually executed in pencil and watercolour, would then be prepared. Amendments were made if requested by the patron and the next stage was for Clarke to create a ‘cartoon’, a full-scale monochrome plan, usually drawn mainly in charcoal on a single sheet cut from a roll of paper which would accurately show the lead-lines and the key elements of the design. Clarke’s cartoons from this period are remarkably detailed and indisputably works of art in their own right. Perhaps surprisingly for an artist who excelled in crisp black and white illustrations which he made in parallel with his stained glass career, his cartoons for stained glass windows are distinctly tonal and indicate how he intended to paint the different pieces of glass which would comprise the completed window. The only significant absence from these cartoons were the inscriptions – though a designated space was clearly assigned for them – as this was an aspect of the window which Clarke did not enjoy doing, and usually the inscriptions were executed by other artists in the studio under his direction. Details of the O’Keefe coat of arms and family moto are likewise left blank on the Wexford cartoon but fully realised in the window as executed. Clarke created his cartoon for Our Lady and Child adored by St Aidan of Ferns and St Adrian in November and December 1918, and the stained glass window itself was completed in early May 1919.When the leading expert on Harry Clarke, Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe, was assembling an exhibition of his work for the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College in 1979 – which was responsible for reigniting interest in Clarke – she selected several of his finest cartoons from the collection of the artist’s son, David Clarke, and among those she chose for exhibition were his cartoons for Killiney and Wexford. In her catalogue notes accompanying the exhibition Dr Gordon Bowe eloquently wrote of the Wexford window: ‘the alert Child sits on the lap of the demure and neat little Madonna, whose silken cloak is strewn with stars and jewels and whose pompom’d slippers rest on a tasselled cushion. They hover over the coastline of Ireland, adored by the kneeling, devout Aiden of Ferns (with tiny replica of the early Cathedral and settlement he founded and a splendid crozier), while behind him the proud, graceful St Adrian stands with a jewelled and chased cross in a Burne-Jones helmet. The sea, at whose edge they worship and the sky around them are lightly inscribed with a wealth of tiny symbolic motifs, amongst which are tiny perfectly detailed scenes of a Crucifixion and the Ascension, a chalice set in a flaming aureole, an exquisite tiny galleon, one of Clarke’s favourite motifs, another chalice, symbolic of the young man’s sacrifice after great suffering, one triangle set with an eye, another struck by lightning, the young man’s initials (W.O.K.) and a delightful vignette of Bride Street Church as seen across Wexford Harbour… When he had time, his personal deeply religious, poetic and unique vision permeated in intricate detail everything he touched.’ (3)Dr David CaronNicola Gordon Bowe, Harry Clarke – the Life and Work (second edition, 2012), p. 146.I am grateful to Reiltín Murphy for information on the O’Keefe family.Nicola Gordon Bowe, Harry Clarke (monograph and catalogue of exhibition in Douglas Hyde Gallery, TCD, 1979), pp. 106–07.Condition Report: Additional photos of some of the repaired areasAlso of the creases and abrasionsPresumably occurred during the process of creating the windows, these were working cartoons of course See additional images
LUDOVICO POGLIAGHI (Milan, 1857 -, Varese, 1950)."Siege. 1890.Oil on paper pasted on cardboard.With label on the back and handwritten inscription.Signed at the lower left.Provenance: private collection conceived since the 70's between London and Madrid.Measurements: 38 x 54 cm.Ludovico Pogliaghi was born in an upper middle class Milanese family. He enrolled at the Brera Academy at a very early age; and in 1889 he completed his studies. Among his strongest influences was Giuseppe Bertini, who taught him painting. During the 1880s he obtained important commissions for the artistic decoration of palaces belonging to the Milanese aristocracy. He also executed religious works and embarked on a career as an illustrator of historical subjects for the Treves publishing house in Milan. He was appointed professor of decoration at the Brera Academy in 1890, and in 1895 won a prestigious competition to design the bronze doors of the Duomo in Milan. One of his works is the Pietà above the entrance to the Expiatori Chapel in Monza. As a leading exponent of an eclectic academicism oriented towards the restoration of earlier classical styles, he engaged in an intense activity that saw him involved in all the major official works of the time, including as a consultant to the Department of Antiquities and Fine Arts, and as a restorer. During the 1920s, while continuing with his official duties, he gradually withdrew from the art world, devoting himself mainly to ecclesiastical commissions. In his mature years, from the mid-1880s onwards, he retired to the house-museum of the Sacro Monte di Varese, where he assembled his collection of antique art, which is displayed together with models of his own works.
LUDOVICO POGLIAGHI (Milan, 1857 - Varese, 1950)."The Death of Pliny in Pompeii", 1890.With label on the back and handwritten inscription.Signed at the lower left.Provenance: private collection conceived since the 1970s between London and Madrid.Measurements: 37 x 55 cm.Ludovico Pogliaghi was born in an upper middle class Milanese family. He enrolled at the Brera Academy at a very early age; and in 1889 he completed his studies. Among his strongest influences was Giuseppe Bertini, who taught him painting. During the 1880s he obtained important commissions for the artistic decoration of palaces belonging to the Milanese aristocracy. He also executed religious works and embarked on a career as an illustrator of historical subjects for the Treves publishing house in Milan. He was appointed professor of decoration at the Brera Academy in 1890, and in 1895 won a prestigious competition to design the bronze doors of the Duomo in Milan. One of his works is the Pietà above the entrance to the Expiatori Chapel in Monza. As a leading exponent of an eclectic academicism oriented towards the restoration of earlier classical styles, he engaged in an intense activity that saw him involved in all the major official works of the time, including as a consultant to the Department of Antiquities and Fine Arts, and as a restorer. During the 1920s, while continuing with his official duties, he gradually withdrew from the art world, devoting himself mainly to ecclesiastical commissions. In his mature years, from the mid-1880s onwards, he retired to the house-museum of the Sacro Monte di Varese, where he assembled his collection of antique art, which is displayed together with models of his own works.
Colonial School. Mexico. 17th century."The Immaculate Virgin with St. Barbara and St. Anthony of Padua"Oil on copper. Nun’s breast shield. Diameter: 13 cm. As Professor Ilona Katzew, Curator and Head of the Latin American Art Department at the LACMA in Los Angeles, notes with respect to these nun’s shields:"This small-scale painting is a badge worn by nuns of the Order of the Immaculate Conception (also known as Conceptionists) in Mexico as part of their dress. Painted badges originated in Mexico in response to religious reforms introduced by the archbishop Francisco Manso y Zúñiga (ruled 1629-1635), who attempted to curtail the luxury and privilege of the convent lifestyle. He forbade nuns to wear shields made of gold, precious stones, and enamel. The nuns circumvented this rule by commissioning shields painted on copper or parchment, and set into frames made of tortoiseshell. Many of the badges were painted by the best artists of the day."This genre of devotional art was widespread during the 17th and 18th centuries in Spain and the New Hispanic world.They tended to be small pictures painted or embroidered with religious scenes, which nuns wore on their chests as they took their vows.It is in the classic portraits of crowned nuns, also with flowers, veils and other ornaments, where we can see the relevance these badges had.On occasions, artists of the calibre of José de Páez, Miguel Cabrera and Luis Juárez made some of these shields. This lot has been imported, therefore its exportation permit from the Ministry of Culture is guaranteed.
A 20th century Art Deco Eugenio Pattarino (1885 - 1971), pottery carnival wall mask hand signed "Prof. E Pattarino, Italy" (verso). 38 cms x 23 cms. (A/F - chip to rosette on tri-corn hat, old restorations to gilt frilled edge).Italian ceramics artist and sculptor Eugenio Pattarino studied under Giovanni Fattori and was known for his large-scale religious statues. He was born in Florence in (1885 - 1971), and he studied art there as well as in Venice and Frankfurt. At his studio near Ponte Vecchio Bridge he designed earthenware, ceramic, and terracotta pottery in addition to his sculptures. Pattarino's ceramic pottery and sculpting reflected his love for modern, traditional, and antique styles.Sculptor Pattarino retired in 1966 following a flood destroyed the bulk of the designs, master molds, and models in his studio.
PAMELA BONE (1925-2021) Six Creative Colour Landscapes, printed or framed 2012, a set of six colour photographs, Cibachrome prints, each from (1970s?) negatives of manipulated images using pre-digital technology, some or all these prints are from multiple superimposed negatives, five signed in ink on the image, four with photographer's hand written notes taped verso regarding the images and framing, images 31cm x 29.3cm, in identical glazed frames 51cm x 49cm Note 1: These six photographs were selected by Pamela Bone and were displayed together at her in residence in Dorking, Surrey Note 2: : Pamela Bone (Lady Pamela Goodale) Pamela Bone (British, 1925-2021) created a significant body of experimental photographic works between 1952 and 1992. Though some of her works were published and exhibited in her lifetime – and she collaborated with notable figures in the world of film, conceptual art and electronic music during the 1970s – this innovative work is now being re-assessed and appreciated. At her death Bone bequeathed her photographic works to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photography, at the V&A oversaw the accession of this collection. Pamela Bone’s estate included some multiples and small editions of some of her works, these have been released for sale by auction at Flints. Please note that purchasers acquire the original physical print or artwork, where an image is also held in the V&A’s collection, the V&A holds copyright to reproduction of that image. Martin Barnes has summarised Pamela Bone’s career and work: “Bone attended Guildford School of Art between 1952-54, creating black and white still-lifes and portraiture alongside colour work. In 1953, she also studied in Paris with advertising and portrait photographer André Thevenet and worked in advertising. Her photographs were published in Photomonde, Vogue, Queen and House and Garden magazines. In 1958, she went to stay with a student friend in Calcutta and from there travelled throughout the following year in India, Sikkim and Kashmir. On returning to the UK, she abandoned commercial photography and focussed on independent art practice. She photographed in North Uist, Outer Hebrides and around Dartmoor, for her Dartmoor Trees and River series. She also studied sound recording. From 1965 Bone began experimenting with a conceptual slide show of her transparencies, based around the themes of her travels, the seasons and children, still life and landscape. She applied this approach in her printing methods, which combined and overlayed transparencies and prints from different periods with photograms to create dreamlike, textured impressions of imagined landscapes. This culminated in Circle of Light, (1972) an experimental film created from transparencies by Bone collaborating with filmmaker Anthony Roland, video art and installation artist Elsa Stansfield (1945-2004) and composer Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (and who famously recorded the Doctor Who theme tune). A VHS copy of Circle of Light is in the V&A National Art Library (NAL). Bone’s approach to collaging and recombining works became her main approach and is a pre-cursor to contemporary practices of sampling. In 1973, she married Sir Ernest William Goodale, becoming Lady Pamela Goodale, but she continued to sign her artworks with her maiden-name. Bone was a lifelong follower of Christian Science. There were many books by the movement’s founder, the religious leader and author Mary Baker Eddy (1821- 1910) in her library. Bone was shy and reclusive and worked largely in seclusion. She set up a Cibachrome colour processing darkroom in 1981 in an outbuilding at her home in Dorking. This process allowed her to make her own direct colour positive prints from her colour transparencies. She made use of ‘lith’ printing as overlay masking for her cibachromes, and also produced pictures using silks. An exhibition of cibachrome prints, Let There Be Light was shown at West Dean College in 1991. Bone ceased printing in 1992 but began meticulously preserving her works. Towards the end of her life, she produced two limited-edition, hand-printed publications of her photographs, Wings of the Wind (2000) and Seven Doors: Finding Freedom of Expression Through Photography (2009) both in the NAL”
Andalusian school of the second half of the 17th century."The Adoration of the Shepherds".Oil on canvas. Re-coloured.It has repainting, restorations and leaps.With 20th century frame.Measurements: 169 x 126 cm; 193 x 151 cm (frame).This canvas represents a classic theme in the History of Art, that of the shepherds adoring the newborn Baby Jesus in the Bethlehem's portal. It is a scene which, as in this case, lends itself to being interpreted as a large composition with numerous figures, worked in a costumbrista style, and was therefore very much to the taste of Baroque painters, who sought above all a natural and intimate art that would move the faithful and make them feel close to what was represented on the canvas, to the sacred story. Thus, the divine elements are reduced to a minimum, with only a Glory break in the upper part, with two child angels attending the event. As is typical of the early Baroque, this heavenly space is clearly differentiated from the earthly one, a clear separation which, however, would disappear in the second Baroque. As for the rest of the figures, all are arranged in the lower part of the composition and are notable for their gestural emphasis and individualised clothing. All of them are presented around the Christ Child, who is placed in the centre of the composition as the absolute protagonist, directly illuminated by a divine light. In short, we see in this canvas a theme that has been repeated many times throughout the history of art, and which experienced a notable boom during the Andalusian Baroque period. The humanity that pervades the scene made the faithful identify with it, an intention that would characterise Spanish religious art from the Counter-Reformation onwards.
Flemish school of the 17th century.Pair of "Country scenes".Oil on canvas.With documentation of Fine Art, Restoration Co.Size: 48 x 64 cm; 60 x 75.5 cm (frame).The works show idealised landscapes: a series of trees mark a series of pronounced vertical lines, only slightly counterbalanced by the lines of the land and its hills. Both depict characters in the foreground, all individualised in their attire, gestures and postures, as does the white horse in one of the works. The relatively high viewpoint allows more distance to be shown towards the background and much more detail of the terrain. The taste for the anecdotal is shown in figures and details with no apparent relationship between them, and in the absence of a subject of importance to justify the landscape, something that is characteristic of both the period and the school to which the painting belongs. The construction of successive planes was common in Flemish painting from the 15th century onwards.In the West, landscape painting did not appear as a fully independent genre in art until almost the 17th century, thanks to Dutch painting (especially Jacob van Ruysdael). It was treated as a mere backdrop in the Middle Ages until the Renaissance began to show interest in it. It is striking to note the large production of the period, which was aimed at the increasingly wealthy urban bourgeoisie, an abundance of works and a proliferation of pictorial genres. One of these genres was landscape, which developed greatly from the 17th century, a time when it had not yet appeared as an independent theme, without needing the presence of an anecdote in order to exist.Like other genres that became very popular in Flanders during the 17th century, landscape painting has its roots in the Dutch pictorial tradition of the 15th century. The background landscapes in the religious works of Van Eyck, de Bouts and van der Goes occupy a much more important place as an artistic element in these works than landscape painting in Italian painting of the same period. With regard to the representation of the narrative, the landscape of the Flemish Primitives plays an essential role, not only as a natural setting for the characters but also to separate and set the various episodes of the story narrated in the work. With regard to the imitation of nature, 15th-century Flemish painters sought to depict the countryside and towns of their native country in their religious landscapes, detailing their flora with botanical precision and even giving an idea of the time of day and the season of the year in which the scene takes place. This special interest in depicting the landscape increased as the 16th century progressed, when a new type of landscape was developed and popularised for sacred scenes: the panoramic view. Very soon, however, it was the depiction of the landscape itself that was to receive the attention of painters and, of course, of the public. In the panoramic views of Joachim Patinir and his followers the roles are reversed: the religious subject is an excuse for the landscape. In these paintings the landscape becomes completely independent of any narrative, and this is the direction that the Flemish and Dutch painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were to follow, a time when landscape painting became very popular in the Low Countries and specialists in the genre began to proliferate. Gillis van Coninxloo, Paul Bril, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper are the most distinguished landscape painters of the transition from the 16th to the 17th century, and each of them gave their vision of landscape a very personal stamp.
Flemish school; 16th century."Saint Jerome.Oil on panel.Measures: 64 x 48 cm.In this work the artist reveals an exceptional sense of drawing through which he has described the saint's anatomy, showing a great precision. Particularly successful is the anatomical capture which is revealed through the slender but defined muscles, which give a glimpse of the saint's life as a hermit. His anatomy shows a certain elongation of the forms, which makes the hands stand out in particular, rounded but at the same time defined and refined. The face also reveals this technical care, which is determined by the treatment of the wrinkles and bags under the saint's expressive eyes. The detail with which the hair has been painted is also noteworthy, with each hair forming part of the beard visible. This shows the artist's interest in capturing an almost microscopic reality. This emphasis on detail and quality is a characteristic feature of the Flemish school. This, together with the hieratic and emphatic nature of the figure, suggests aesthetic compositions similar to those of the painter Ambrosius Benson (Lombardy, ca. 1490-1500 - Bruges, January 1550), whose Saint Jerome in the collection of the Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp, is very similar to the present work. In both works the saint is immersed in a rocky interior that opens slightly onto the landscape in the upper left corner. In the centre of the composition, Saint Jerome, dressed in a greyish tunic that reveals a glimpse of his torso, holds a cross with the body of Christ in his hands. It is on this point that the two works differ, as in the present painting the saint only holds the cross. Finally, the work is completed with the iconographic attributes typical of Saint Jerome, such as the lion and the skull. Ambrosius Benson was one of the so-called masters of the tradition, a successor of Van der Goes, and was influenced by Van Eyck, Van der Weyden and the Flemish Primitives in general. Nonetheless, his work reveals 16th-century features from Italy, such as the triangular composition in the present work. Originally from Lombardy, his painting reveals more Italianate features. As can be seen in the present panel, his personal use of colour is particularly important, with a predominance of maroon tones in contrast to the whites and light tones of the flesh tones, which are thus very much emphasised in the composition. Also typical of his work is the velvety quality of the cloaks. Benson was a painter of religious subjects and portraits and trained with Gerard David in Bruges from 1518, the year in which he became a citizen.The depiction of Saint Jerome has been one of the most frequently depicted subjects in the world of art. Whether as a penitent or as a sage, the saint's biography has served to connect with the faithful and to convey the values of the Church. Saint Jerome was born near Aquileia (Italy) in 347. Trained in Rome, he was an accomplished rhetorician, as well as a polyglot. Baptised at the age of nineteen, between 375 and 378 he withdrew to the Syrian desert to lead an anchorite's life. He returned to Rome in 382 and became a collaborator of Pope Damasus. The accumulation of books and scrolls next to the saint alludes to the saint's translation of the Bible into Latin, which was considered the only official translation since the Council of Trent. The theme of Saint Jerome hearing the trumpet of the Last Judgement would become fashionable in Counter-Reformation Europe and would gradually take hold, displacing previous interpretations of the saint as a sage or penitent.
RENÉ LALIQUE (Ay, France, 1860- Paris, 1945)."Vase no. 3. France, ca. 1925.Art Deco tabletop centrepiece of circular form in acid-etched moulded glass with vegetal decorations and borders.Signed R. Lalique in the central area.Work reproduced in "Le Catalogue Raisonné del L'Ouvre en Verre de R. Lalique", by Felix Marcilhac, Les Editions de l'Amateur , Pag. 702, nº. 3020 with photo.Procedure: Private Collection, Spain between 1970-1990.Measurements: 2.5 cm (height); 23.5 cm (diameter).The firm Lalique was originally founded by René Jules Lalique (1860 - 1945), one of the most prominent glassmakers of the time, and one of the first to sculpt glass for large monumental works, such as the fountains on the Champs Elysées. He enjoyed great renown for his original creations of jewellery, perfume bottles, glasses, plates, etc., in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. He trained with the Parisian jeweller Louis Aucoq, and then continued his studies at Sudenham Art College in London. The excellence of his creations and the taste he applied to his work earned him important commissions for the interior decoration of ships, trains such as the Orient Express, churches such as Saint-Nicasius in Reims, and numerous religious and civil goldsmiths' works. Lalique was not content with simply designing his models, but also founded a factory to produce them in large quantities, patenting several innovative glass manufacturing processes, and various technical effects such as "Lalique satin" or opalescent glass. Pieces by Lalique are preserved in prominent museums such as the Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Glass in New York, the Louvre and the Orsay Museum in Paris, among many others.
Ca. 300-1 BC. A substantial ceramic bull's head from a rhyton with naturalistic features; modelled with short horns, ears, frowning face, eyes, snout and fleshy muzzle. A rhyton is a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk or to be poured, whether as part of a religious ritual or during feasting. See Ebbinghaus, S., Animal Shaped Vessels of the Ancient World, Feasting with Gods, Heroes and Kings, Harvard Art Museums, 2018, p.314, for a sketch of a similar. Size: L:165mm / W:86mm; 408gProvenance: Private London collector; obtained from an important London W1, gallery; previously acquired 1970s-1980s.
Ca.100-300 AD. A silver wine bowl with a hemispherical body and smooth walls. Banqueting was a major part of the aristocratic culture in antiquity and required a range of specialised utensils and vessels such as this one. Such items could also have religious purposes, used when making offerings to the gods.Size: L:30mm / W:100mm ; 65gProvenance: Property of a West London gentleman; previously in a collection formed on the UK/International art market in the 1980s.
Ca. 600-800 AD. A wearable, religious gold pendant in a circular form with a beaded border enclosing a relief decoration of two doves facing each other and perching o a trefoil-shaped tendril. In Christianity, the dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, also it was the dove that brought the olive branch to Noah on the Ark. This item is in wearable condition and it comes with a modern necklace cord.Size: L:22.5mm / W:20.1mm ; 2gProvenance: From an old British collection, acquired on the UK art market in the 1980s.
Ca. 224–651 AD.. Sassanian. A hemispherical bowl hammered from one sheet. The interior is decorated with a medallion showing a gilded animal surrounded by a circle of geometric motifs. The Sassanian empire is famed for the high quality of its ceremonial metalware, which was used both during banqueting and during religious rituals. Under the Sasanians, Iranian art experienced a general renaissance. Artistically, this period witnessed some of the highest achievements of Iranian civilization. Metalwork and gem engraving became highly sophisticated. For more information, please see Harper, Prudence Oliver and Meyers, Pieter (1981). Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period, Vol. I. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. And Gunter, A. C. and Jett, P. (1992). Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art. MainzSize: L:46mm / W:125mm ; 89gProvenance: Acquiried from M.A.; Previously in a collection formed on the UK/International art market since the 1970s.
Western Asiatic, Ca. 1200-700 BC. An attractive ceremonial axe head with flared blade and wide, cylindrical shaft tube. On the back, a solid bronze animal climbs the poll of the axe. The diligently worked-out muscular body is fixed on the shaft. Bronze weaponry production flourished from the 2nd millennium BC to about 700 BC when it was gradually replaced by iron. Swords, mace heads, spears, and arrows were exchanged via trade and war and are discovered in both civic and ritual contexts. An axe head such as this one would have been an important symbol of rank, and have served a purpose in warfare, but also in religious contexts as mace heads were common votive offerings in shrines. Size: L:145mm / W:100mm ; 650gProvenance: Property of a North London gentleman; previously acquired on the UK/European art market in the 1970s.
Ca. 1500-1000 BC. A bronze axe head featuring a curved blade with a tapering cheek, and a pick end with four spikes. An axe such as this one would have been an important symbol of rank, and have served a purpose in warfare, but also in religious contexts as axes were common votive offerings in shrines.Size: L:190mm / W:60mm ; 355gProvenance: Property of a West London gentleman; previously in a collection formed on the UK/International art market in the 1980s.
Ca. 2000-700 BC. A bronze axe head with a curved blade, tapering cheek, and a wedge-shaped adze to the rear. The shaft long and cylindrical. An axe such as this one would have been an important symbol of rank, and have served a purpose in warfare, but also in religious contexts as axes were common votive offerings in shrines.Size: L:245mm / W:90mm ; 1.64kgProvenance: Property of a West London gentleman; previously in a collection formed on the UK/International art market in the 1980s.
Ca. 3rd millennium BC. A cast bronze mace head/cudgel of a tubular shape. The upper part is decorated with 9 rows of raised chevrons, separated by a series of vertically orientated bands and framed above and below by three raised bands. A mace head such as this one would have been an important symbol of rank, and have served a purpose in warfare, but also in religious contexts as mace heads were common votive offerings in shrines. Reference: O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron. Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, item 516, p. 391.Size: L:235mm / W:30mm ; 460gProvenance: From the collection of a London gentleman; formerly acquired in early 2000s in France; previously in 1970s European collection.
Ca. 3rd millennium BC. A cast bronze mace head/cudgel of a tubular shape. The upper part is decorated with panels of 13 rows of raised chevrons, separated by a series of vertically orientated bands and framed above and below by three raised bands. A mace head such as this one would have been an important symbol of rank, and have served a purpose in warfare, but also in religious contexts as mace heads were common votive offerings in shrines. Reference: O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron. Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, item 516, p. 391.Size: L:220mm / W:30mm ; 430gProvenance: From the collection of a London gentleman; formerly acquired in early 2000s in France; previously in 1970s European collection.
A Collection of Various 19th Century and Later Metalwares, including pewter tankards, a large pewter tyg, silver plated entree dish, Art Nouveau brass andirons, an early 20th century Arts & Crafts copper mounted twin-handled vessel decorated with religious subjects, miniature brass fire curb, pewter caddies, candelabra; together with early 19th century wooden handled knives and forks, a sextant, plated cocktail shaker and a Victorian miniature cast iron fireplace etc (two shelves)From the Estate of Stephen Hamilton Rawlings, Scarborough.
OTTO DIX (Untermhaus, near Gera, Germany, 1891-Singen (Hohentwiel), 1969)."Portrait of Ursus", 1927.Pencil and sanguine drawing on paper.Signed and dated in the lower margin.Size: 31 x 37 cm.A representative of the New Objectivity and German Expressionism, Otto Dix became popular for his paintings of war painted during the First World War, a war in which he enlisted as a volunteer. Notable works from this period include Artillery (1914, Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf) and The War (1929-1930, Dresden Museum), The Trench (Schützengraben 1921-1923) and the series of 50 etchings entitled War (1924). His output includes 500 sketches and various portraits, as well as canvases and watercolours evoking the Renaissance period. Otto Dix trained at the School of Decorative Arts in Dresden, where he remained until 1914. After the war he returned to Dresden, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and worked as an independent artist, forming part of the Dresdner Sezession Gruppe from 1919, while participating in group exhibitions throughout Germany. He subsequently became a leading figure in the New Objectivity movement, with works that evinced his revulsion at the social injustice of post-war Germany. The acid colours of his compositions attest to this. From 1927 to 1933 Dix taught at the Dresden Academy until 1937, when he was dismissed by the Nazis, who included him in their Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition. Some of his paintings were burnt. From 1930 onwards his works show a period in which he stylistically approached both Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Dürer and Matthias Grünewald and Expressionist forms. In 1939 he was arrested and falsely accused of being involved in a plot against Adolf Hitler, but was later released. Without leaving Germany, he retired to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance, where he devoted himself to landscape painting and depicting religious themes in a style close to that of Albrecht Altdorfer. He is currently represented in the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, the Fundación Juan March, the Kunstmuseum in Düsseldorf, the Dresden Museum, the Schützengraben and the Bern Art Museum, among many other institutions worldwide.
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980) CRAY FIELDS, 1925 (TASSI 19) Etching, signed in pencil to marginDimensions:image size 11.5cm (4 1/2in), 12cm (4 3/4in)Provenance:Provenance: Mrs A. M. Bernhard-Smith, Twenty-One Gallery, LondonChristie's, South Kensington, 19th May 2016, lot 55.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.19.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.11. Note: Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20 Note: Gordon Cooke has noted that 'the Cray is a river, rising at St Mary Cray, near Farningham, where Graham Sutherland moved in 1927' (op.cit., unpaginated). Roberto Tassi has remarked that in this work ‘the bewitching atmosphere of [Samuel] Palmer…is clearly in the ascendant here, as we can see from the stars, the tall spikes and line of hop-poles’. (op.cit., p. 20)
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980) THE VILLAGE, 1925 (TASSI 20) Etching, signed in pencil to marginDimensions:17cm (6 3/4in), 22cm (8 3/4in)Provenance:Provenance: Christie's, South Kensington, 16th April 2014, lot 120.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.20.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no. 9. Note: Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air of quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20Note: Gordon Cooke has linked The Village to Samuel Palmer's etching The Bellman of 1879 (op.cit., unpaginated, see Victoria & Albert Museum collection acc. no.E.1465-1926). In contrast, Roberto Tassi detected the influence of Jean-François Millet and declared that The Village revealed 'a new and absolutely original vision...with tilled fields, weary labourers, their wretched cottages and the evening stillness that weighs on everything.' (op.cit., p. 19) Ronald Alley has explained that the scene depicted was 'based mainly on scenery around Cudham in Kent, but with elements from Warning Camp in Sussex.’ (Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London 1982, p. 58.)
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980) PECKEN WOOD, 1925 (TASSI 21) Etching, signed in pencil to marginDimensions:13.5cm (5 1/4in), 18cm (7in)Provenance:Provenance: Mrs A. M. Bernhard-Smith, Twenty-One Gallery, LondonChristie's, South Kensington, 19th May 2016, lot 51.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.21.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.10. Note: Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20 Note: Ronald Alley has written about this work that the rural world it depicts ‘is one of the past, the evocation of a mode of village life which had almost completely passed away. The emphasis is on the autumnal fertility of nature, with man living in communion with nature and...the moment depicted is when the sun is setting, or near setting and the stars are beginning to come out.' (Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London 1983, p. 59)
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980) ST. MARY'S HATCH, 1926 (TASSI 22) Etching, signed in pencil to marginDimensions:12cm (4 3/4in), 18cm (7in)Provenance:Provenance: Mrs A. M. Bernhard-Smith, Twenty-One Gallery, LondonChristie's, South Kensington, 19th May 2016, lot 52.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.22.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.13. Note: Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20Note: St Mary's Hatch comes from ‘a series of small, densely worked etchings of rural England, thatched cottages and churches, fields with stooks of corn, the setting sun and the first evening stars, which were intensely poetic evocations of a more or less lost world of innocence and religious piety.’ (Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London 1982, p. 9)
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980) MAY GREEN, 1927 (TASSI 24) Etching, signed in pencil to marginDimensions:11cm (4 1/4in), 16cm (6 1/4in)Provenance:Provenance: Christie's, South Kensington, 16th April 2014, lot 121.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.24.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.16. Note: Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20 Note: According to Gordon Cooke, this was the only etching which Sutherland made in 1927 (op.cit, unpaginated). He has also explained that it is the last in a series of four etchings, including Cray Fields and St Mary Hatch, ‘which seem to celebrate both religious and rural values, anchoring the scenes to the calendar and particular places.’
Ushebti; Egypt, New Empire, 1526-1070 BC.Fayenza.It has faults.Measurements: 10.5 x 4.5 x 3 cm.The ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning "those who answer", are small statuettes which, in Ancient Egypt, were placed in the tombs as part of the funerary trousseau of the deceased, and whose function was to replace him in the work he had to carry out in the Afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
Ushebti; Egypt, Ptolemaic period, 323-30 BC.Green faience.It shows superficial wear and loss.Visible inscription.Measurements: 9 x 3 x 2 cm.The ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who answer', are small statuettes which, in Ancient Egypt, were placed in tombs as part of the funerary trousseau of the deceased, and whose function was to replace him in the work he had to carry out in the Afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
Ushebti; Egypt, Lower Egypt, 664-332 BC.Fayenza.It has losses in the glaze.Measurements: 19 x 5 x 3.5 cm.Ushebti in faience that has lost part of its turquoise-green glaze, wearing a wig and false beard, holding a pickaxe and hoe. The lower part has inscriptions taken from chapter six of the Book of the Dead, as is usual in this type of piece.Ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who answer', are small statuettes that, in ancient Egypt, were placed in tombs as part of the grave goods of the deceased, and whose function was to replace the deceased in the work to be carried out in the afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
Mother Goddess. Tell Halaf, Syria, 6th millennium BC.Polychrome terracotta.Provenance:- Collection of Michel Vinaver, French writer and playwright (Paris 1927-2022).- To his children, Anouk, Barbara, Delphine and Ivan Vinaver, 2022.- French art market, 2022.Restored left leg.Measurements: 8,3 cm.Statuette of a Mother Goddess seated, naked and holding her breasts with her arms, showing them as a symbol of fertility. It belongs to the Halaf culture, an archaeological period in the history of Mesopotamia with its main site at Tell Halaf. The figurines of the Mother Goddess are one of its most identifiable artistic manifestations.Tell Halaf is an archaeological site near the city of Ra's al-'Ayn in the fertile valley of the Khabur River in the province of al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria. The settlement dates to the 6th millennium BC. Some five millennia later, the Aramean city-state of Guzana or Gozan was established at the site in the 1st millennium BC. This was the first known discovery of a Neolithic culture, later known as the Halaf culture, characterised mainly by pottery painted with geometric and animal designs. Painted pottery flourished in the area, with vessels depicting decorative motifs, both figurative and geometric, possibly with religious content: humans, buckram, reptiles, scorpions, panthers, birds, painted in black and red.
SIMON LAURIE RSW RGI (SCOTTISH b. 1964),STILL LIFE COLLIOUREacrylic on board, signed, titled versoimage size 80cm x 85cm, overall size 90.5cm x 95cm Framed.Note: Simon Laurie is a contemporary Scottish landscape and still life artist, whose paintings are characterised by references to Scottish life and society, incorporating fish, boats, religious symbols and everyday items. These objects are arranged upon a rich textural ground created by the application of multiple layers of acrylic paint. He has worked with acrylic paint for almost 30 years, developing his own individual style and fundamental visual language. Laurie was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1982 to 1988. He was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW) in 1991 and the Royal Glasgow Institute (RGI) in 2000, where he served as convener for six years. He has had many solo shows, both in the UK and abroad, and has won many prestigious and major awards. His work is held in many public, private and corporate collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Contemporary Arts Society, London; Feren Art Gallery, Hull; Freshfields, London; Leicestershire Education Committee; Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie; Nationwide Building Society, London; Royal Bank of Scotland; TSB Headquarters, London; Unilever PLC; William Teacher and Sons Ltd; Wyse Group; Walter Scott Investments Ltd, Edinburgh; Biggart Baillie; Aberdeen Asset Management; The Whisky Society, Edinburgh; Adam and Co Bank; Provident Financial; The Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh.
PAMELA BONE (1925-2021), Five Creative Colour Landscapes,printed c.2000-2006, five colour photographs, Cibachrome prints, each a manipulated image, some or all these prints are from multiple superimposed negatives, four signed in ink on the image, all with photographer's hand written notes taped verso regarding the images and framing, images approximately 31cm x 30cm, in glazed frames largest 54cm x 51cm Note: These photographs were selected by Pamela Bone and were displayed together at her in residence in Dorking, Surrey. Some frames appear to be reused and may have an earlier image concealed. Note: Pamela Bone (Lady Pamela Goodale) Pamela Bone (British, 1925-2021) created a significant body of experimental photographic works between 1952 and 1992. Though some of her works were published and exhibited in her lifetime – and she collaborated with notable figures in the world of film, conceptual art and electronic music during the 1970s – this innovative work is now being re-assessed and appreciated. At her death Bone bequeathed her photographic works to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photography, at the V&A oversaw the accession of this collection. Pamela Bone’s estate included some multiples and small editions of some of her works, these have been released for sale by auction at Flints. Please note that purchasers acquire the original physical print or artwork, where an image is also held in the V&A’s collection, the V&A holds copyright to reproduction of that image. Martin Barnes has summarised Pamela Bone’s career and work: “Bone attended Guildford School of Art between 1952-54, creating black and white still-lifes and portraiture alongside colour work. In 1953, she also studied in Paris with advertising and portrait photographer André Thevenet and worked in advertising. Her photographs were published in Photomonde, Vogue, Queen and House and Garden magazines. In 1958, she went to stay with a student friend in Calcutta and from there travelled throughout the following year in India, Sikkim and Kashmir. On returning to the UK, she abandoned commercial photography and focussed on independent art practice. She photographed in North Uist, Outer Hebrides and around Dartmoor, for her Dartmoor Trees and River series. She also studied sound recording. From 1965 Bone began experimenting with a conceptual slide show of her transparencies, based around the themes of her travels, the seasons and children, still life and landscape. She applied this approach in her printing methods, which combined and overlayed transparencies and prints from different periods with photograms to create dreamlike, textured impressions of imagined landscapes. This culminated in Circle of Light, (1972) an experimental film created from transparencies by Bone collaborating with filmmaker Anthony Roland, video art and installation artist Elsa Stansfield (1945-2004) and composer Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (and who famously recorded the Doctor Who theme tune). A VHS copy of Circle of Light is in the V&A National Art Library (NAL). Bone’s approach to collaging and recombining works became her main approach and is a pre-cursor to contemporary practices of sampling. In 1973, she married Sir Ernest William Goodale, becoming Lady Pamela Goodale, but she continued to sign her artworks with her maiden-name. Bone was a lifelong follower of Christian Science. There were many books by the movement’s founder, the religious leader and author Mary Baker Eddy (1821- 1910) in her library. Bone was shy and reclusive and worked largely in seclusion. She set up a Cibachrome colour processing darkroom in 1981 in an outbuilding at her home in Dorking. This process allowed her to make her own direct colour positive prints from her colour transparencies. She made use of ‘lith’ printing as overlay masking for her cibachromes, and also produced pictures using silks. An exhibition of cibachrome prints, Let There Be Light was shown at West Dean College in 1991. Bone ceased printing in 1992 but began meticulously preserving her works. Towards the end of her life, she produced two limited-edition, hand-printed publications of her photographs, Wings of the Wind (2000) and Seven Doors: Finding Freedom of Expression Through Photography (2009) both in the NALâ€
PAMELA BONE (1925-2021), Five Framed Creative Photographs,Two Shadow Leaves Nov 2009, overlapped reversed photogram of a skeleton leaf, unsigned, titled on note verso with 'These are my signature pix changed places .... These 2 shadow leaves are printed on American cotton 100% archival', image 24cm x 14cm, frame 38cm x 26cm, a collage black string of silk and foil-backed negatives of leaves, on orange ground, frame 56cm x 54cm, a colour composite leaf skeleton image, a woodland scene and farm machinery, all probably Cibachrome Note: Pamela Bone (Lady Pamela Goodale) Pamela Bone (British, 1925-2021) created a significant body of experimental photographic works between 1952 and 1992. Though some of her works were published and exhibited in her lifetime – and she collaborated with notable figures in the world of film, conceptual art and electronic music during the 1970s – this innovative work is now being re-assessed and appreciated. At her death Bone bequeathed her photographic works to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photography, at the V&A oversaw the accession of this collection. Pamela Bone’s estate included some multiples and small editions of some of her works, these have been released for sale by auction at Flints. Please note that purchasers acquire the original physical print or artwork, where an image is also held in the V&A’s collection, the V&A holds copyright to reproduction of that image. Martin Barnes has summarised Pamela Bone’s career and work: “Bone attended Guildford School of Art between 1952-54, creating black and white still-lifes and portraiture alongside colour work. In 1953, she also studied in Paris with advertising and portrait photographer André Thevenet and worked in advertising. Her photographs were published in Photomonde, Vogue, Queen and House and Garden magazines. In 1958, she went to stay with a student friend in Calcutta and from there travelled throughout the following year in India, Sikkim and Kashmir. On returning to the UK, she abandoned commercial photography and focussed on independent art practice. She photographed in North Uist, Outer Hebrides and around Dartmoor, for her Dartmoor Trees and River series. She also studied sound recording. From 1965 Bone began experimenting with a conceptual slide show of her transparencies, based around the themes of her travels, the seasons and children, still life and landscape. She applied this approach in her printing methods, which combined and overlayed transparencies and prints from different periods with photograms to create dreamlike, textured impressions of imagined landscapes. This culminated in Circle of Light, (1972) an experimental film created from transparencies by Bone collaborating with filmmaker Anthony Roland, video art and installation artist Elsa Stansfield (1945-2004) and composer Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (and who famously recorded the Doctor Who theme tune). A VHS copy of Circle of Light is in the V&A National Art Library (NAL). Bone’s approach to collaging and recombining works became her main approach and is a pre-cursor to contemporary practices of sampling. In 1973, she married Sir Ernest William Goodale, becoming Lady Pamela Goodale, but she continued to sign her artworks with her maiden-name. Bone was a lifelong follower of Christian Science. There were many books by the movement’s founder, the religious leader and author Mary Baker Eddy (1821- 1910) in her library. Bone was shy and reclusive and worked largely in seclusion. She set up a Cibachrome colour processing darkroom in 1981 in an outbuilding at her home in Dorking. This process allowed her to make her own direct colour positive prints from her colour transparencies. She made use of ‘lith’ printing as overlay masking for her cibachromes, and also produced pictures using silks. An exhibition of cibachrome prints, Let There Be Light was shown at West Dean College in 1991. Bone ceased printing in 1992 but began meticulously preserving her works. Towards the end of her life, she produced two limited-edition, hand-printed publications of her photographs, Wings of the Wind (2000) and Seven Doors: Finding Freedom of Expression Through Photography (2009) both in the NALâ€
PAMELA BONE (1925-2021) Gelatin Silver Prints,photographed and printed 1960s and later, each with photographers wetstamp verso, 20+ animals (wildlife and pets), 60+ landscapes and architecture, 20+ taken in India, labelled ' B&W copies from Indian transparencies' with some contact prints etc. Note: Pamela Bone (Lady Pamela Goodale) Pamela Bone (British, 1925-2021) created a significant body of experimental photographic works between 1952 and 1992. Though some of her works were published and exhibited in her lifetime – and she collaborated with notable figures in the world of film, conceptual art and electronic music during the 1970s – this innovative work is now being re-assessed and appreciated. At her death Bone bequeathed her photographic works to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photography, at the V&A oversaw the accession of this collection. Pamela Bone’s estate included some multiples and small editions of some of her works, these have been released for sale by auction at Flints. Please note that purchasers acquire the original physical print or artwork, where an image is also held in the V&A’s collection, the V&A holds copyright to reproduction of that image. Martin Barnes has summarised Pamela Bone’s career and work: “Bone attended Guildford School of Art between 1952-54, creating black and white still-lifes and portraiture alongside colour work. In 1953, she also studied in Paris with advertising and portrait photographer André Thevenet and worked in advertising. Her photographs were published in Photomonde, Vogue, Queen and House and Garden magazines. In 1958, she went to stay with a student friend in Calcutta and from there travelled throughout the following year in India, Sikkim and Kashmir. On returning to the UK, she abandoned commercial photography and focussed on independent art practice. She photographed in North Uist, Outer Hebrides and around Dartmoor, for her Dartmoor Trees and River series. She also studied sound recording. From 1965 Bone began experimenting with a conceptual slide show of her transparencies, based around the themes of her travels, the seasons and children, still life and landscape. She applied this approach in her printing methods, which combined and overlayed transparencies and prints from different periods with photograms to create dreamlike, textured impressions of imagined landscapes. This culminated in Circle of Light, (1972) an experimental film created from transparencies by Bone collaborating with filmmaker Anthony Roland, video art and installation artist Elsa Stansfield (1945-2004) and composer Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (and who famously recorded the Doctor Who theme tune). A VHS copy of Circle of Light is in the V&A National Art Library (NAL). Bone’s approach to collaging and recombining works became her main approach and is a pre-cursor to contemporary practices of sampling. In 1973, she married Sir Ernest William Goodale, becoming Lady Pamela Goodale, but she continued to sign her artworks with her maiden-name. Bone was a lifelong follower of Christian Science. There were many books by the movement’s founder, the religious leader and author Mary Baker Eddy (1821- 1910) in her library. Bone was shy and reclusive and worked largely in seclusion. She set up a Cibachrome colour processing darkroom in 1981 in an outbuilding at her home in Dorking. This process allowed her to make her own direct colour positive prints from her colour transparencies. She made use of ‘lith’ printing as overlay masking for her cibachromes, and also produced pictures using silks. An exhibition of cibachrome prints, Let There Be Light was shown at West Dean College in 1991. Bone ceased printing in 1992 but began meticulously preserving her works. Towards the end of her life, she produced two limited-edition, hand-printed publications of her photographs, Wings of the Wind (2000) and Seven Doors: Finding Freedom of Expression Through Photography (2009) both in the NALâ€
MATÍAS DE ARTEAGA Y ALFARO (Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real, 1633 - Seville, 1703)."Jesus and the adulteress".Oil on canvas.Relined.Measurements: 84 x 105 cm; 95 x 116 cm (frame).In this oil painting by Matías de Arteaga, as was typical of this painter's art, the architectural interior has been meticulously described and worked following the precepts of Italian perspective. However, Renaissance spatial solutions became more complicated in the Baroque period, with the superimposition of scenes and spaces. The main scene is occupied by Jesus, who points to the ground while saying "Let him who is blameless cast the first stone". In front of him is the woman who was to be stoned for adultery. The other figures are stunned and undecided by his words. The relief effect of the figures carved in the stone, the rich plasticity of the robes and the flesh tones, as well as the solution of the groups escaping towards a background of arcades are remarkable. The work is very similar to works by Matías de Arteaga, in which classical architecture plays an important role, such as the Wedding at Cana, which belongs to the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville, or the Marriage of the Virgin, in the collection of the Museo del Prado.Matías de Arteaga y Alfaro was a Spanish Baroque painter and engraver. A member of the Sevillian school, he was able to capture and interpret the dual influence of Murillo and Valdés Leal with his own personality. The son of the engraver Bartolomé Arteaga, when he was still a child his family moved to Seville, where he trained in his father's studio and in contact with Murillo, whose influence reveals his early work together with that of Valdés Leal, who settled in Seville the same year that Arteaga passed his master painter's examination in 1656. In 1660 he was among the founding members of the celebrated drawing academy promoted by Murillo, among others, of which he served as secretary between then and 1673. In 1664 he joined the Hermandad de la Santa Caridad brotherhood and two years later the Sacramental del Sagrario brotherhood of Seville cathedral, for which he produced a number of works. Around 1680 he is also recorded as working as an appraiser of paintings. He died in 1703, and the inventory of his estate at his death reveals that he lived well off, having a slave and a large, well-furnished house with a medium-sized library containing important books in Latin and Spanish and an engraving studio, as well as over 150 paintings, almost half of which were of religious subjects. Among them were four series of the Life of the Virgin, some of which were expressly said to contain architectural views, such as those in the present work and those in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville. The most characteristic feature of his peculiar style is precisely these series of always religious subjects, set in broad landscapes and architectural perspectives taken from prints. Skilful in the creation of these deep, skilfully illuminated perspectives, he was, however, somewhat clumsy in his treatment of the figures and their bodily expressions. Arteaga is represented in the aforementioned Sevillian museum, various Sevillian churches including the cathedral and the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, among others.
JOSÉ MARÍA RODRÍGUEZ DE LOSADA (Seville, 1826 - Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1896)."Portrait of a lady with a shawl.Oil on canvas.It preserves a period frame with important faults.Signed in the lower right corner.Measurements: 82,5 x 62,5 cm; 105 x 82 cm (frame).José María Rodríguez de Losada began his apprenticeship in Seville, but developed all his pictorial activity in Jerez de la Frontera. He was a history painter and portrait painter, although in his early years he devoted himself to genre painting, as evidenced by his work "Pareja de majos" ("Couple of Majos") of 1843. According to Valdivieso, "Rodríguez de Losada's artistic style shows a loose, scrubbed, sometimes careless and summary brushstroke. This technique, salutary in principle because of its modernity, was rejected at the time by critics, especially for being accompanied by a violent colouring with a predominance of brownish tones which, in effect, produce little visual gratitude". In fact, the artist's work is markedly influenced by Romanticism, which is reflected in his painting in an intense thematic and formal dramatism that is very different from the cheerful, gentle feeling of the paintings of many of his contemporaries. Among his most important historical works are "Columbus's Landing in America" (University of Barcelona), "The Battle of Alcolea" (Academy of History) and "Doña Juana la Loca with her Husband's Corpse" (Museum of Cadiz). Rodríguez de Losada also drew inspiration from literature and art for some of his works, such as "The Brave Mayor of Zahara", "Quevedo Reading an Epigram against the Count Duke of Olivares" and "Valdés Leal Inspired to Paint the Last Days". Of neo-Romantic inspiration were paintings such as "A Widow Finding her Husband's Corpse on the Battlefield" (1858), and as a portraitist, the portrait of Alfonso XII (Diputación de Cádiz) is particularly noteworthy. He also painted religious themes and some still lifes, such as "Dead Duck" (1884). A member of the Order of Santiago and a corresponding academician of San Fernando, Rodríguez de Losada took part in the National Fine Arts Exhibitions for several years, receiving honourable mentions in the 1858 and 1867 editions. He was also awarded the silver medal of Charles III at the Seville Exhibition of 1843, a gold medal at the exhibitions organised by the Academy of Saint Isabel of Hungary in Seville in 1854 and 1856 and a gold medal at the exhibition organised by the Friends of the Country in 1858. His work can now be seen in the Museo del Prado and the Museo Provincial de Cádiz, as well as in other public and private art collections.
19th century Spanish school"Crucifixion of Jesus".Oil on canvas. Relined.Measurements: 37 x 47 cm; 52 x 61 cm (frame).The present work was made following models of the Flemish painter Louis de Caullery. His most significant productions are elegant courtly representations, both in interiors and gardens, although he also produced some paintings with religious themes, such as "The Crucifixion" kept in the Prado Museum, which can be compared to the present work. The Crucifixion is probably the most characteristic Christian image and was undoubtedly one of the most widely represented and collected in Habsburg Spain. Sculptures or paintings of Christ on the cross in various forms were to be found in almost every church and chapel, and in private homes they served as devotional objects. Passion themes, which emphasise the human character of Jesus and his suffering, were central to the spiritual life of Golden Age Spain. In depicting these scenes, painters and sculptors aimed to move the viewer in the same way that poets and preachers did with their respective means of expression. Given the public nature of devotion at the time and the familiarity of seventeenth-century Spaniards with sacred art, images such as these were for most of them inseparable from the pious experience.
Ushebti; Egypt, 25th Dynasty, Reign of Taharqa 690-664 BC.Granite.Includes an exhaustive study by Egyptologist Fernando Estrada Laza.Measurements: 24 x 9 x 5 cm.Ushebti made in granite of the pharaoh Taharqa represented with his arms crossed over his chest and holding the royal heqat and the nekhakha in his hands. The piece shows a powerful king, in a solemn pose, with a serious expression, eyes and mouth wide open, and always looking straight ahead. He wears the Nemes headdress with the uraeus and ceremonial beard. There is also a nine-line inscription on the body with text from Chapter VI of 'The Book of the Dead', devoted to magical formulae for ushebtis. This ushebti of Pharaoh Taharqa belongs to the series of one thousand and seventy "responders" found inside his pyramid at Nuri. Taharqa, under the name of "Tearco the Ethiopian", was described by the ancient Greek historian Strabo. Strabo mentioned Taharqa in a list of other notable conquerors (Cyrus the Great, Xerxes, Sessotris). Taharqa chose the site of Nuri in northern Sudan to build his pyramid, far from the traditional burial place of El-Kurru. It was Nuri's first and largest pyramid, and about twenty subsequent kings followed him on the site.Ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who respond', are small statuettes that in ancient Egypt were placed in tombs as part of the grave goods of the deceased, and whose function was to stand in for the work to be done in the afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
Ancient Egyptian Ushebti, Lower Egypt, 664-323 BC.Fayenza.Provenance: Private collection, Le Coudray, France.In good state of preservation.Measurements: 10 cm (height).The ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who answer', are small statuettes which, in Ancient Egypt, were placed in tombs as part of the funerary trousseau of the deceased, and whose function was to replace him in the work he had to carry out in the Afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
Ushebti for Pharaoh Psusenes I, Ancient Egypt, Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, reign of Psusenes I, c. 1039-991 BC.Bronze.Provenance: Royal trousseau from the tomb of Pharaoh Psusenes I at Tanis, Egypt. Discovered in 1940 by Pierre Montet; Private collection, Uccle, Belgium.Intact.On the body there is a vertical register of hieroglyphic writing. This inscription translates: 'The Osiris, king Pasebajaenniut-meryamon (The star that appears in the city of Thebes, beloved of Amun-Psusenes I).Measurements: 7.5 cm (height).This ushebti is remarkable for the fine and delicate work of the craftsman, who has outlined the legend on its body with great precision. The legend, written in hieroglyphic script, refers to the pharaoh Psusenes.The ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who answer', are small statuettes that were placed in tombs in ancient Egypt as part of the grave goods of the deceased, and whose function was to replace him in the work he was to perform in the afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.
NATALIA GONTCHAROVA , LADYJINO, 1881 - PARIS, 1962At the caféOil on canvas 67.5 x 57 cmThis couple seated at the terrace of a café offers us a scene of seduction in which the man, in a hurry, spouts off a speech in the ear of a woman who lends him an attentive ear but a dubious pout. Behind them, the massive silhouette of a waiter dominates them and seems to be watching them from the corner of his eye. Bordering on caricature, Natalia Goncharova captures her contemporaries in their daily lives, lending them mimicry as if they were performing a play. Without being moral, the scene is part of the tradition of the genre scene, which captures some everyday moment by exacerbating it. Here the man, whose boater is placed on the table, belongs to the bourgeoisie, as his elegant suit attests. The woman, on the other hand, is a commoner with a simple outfit and a kerchief tied over her shoulders which probably covered her head. The waiter's kossovorotka, a white shirt, also shows that we are in Russia. The silhouettes of the protagonists are drawn in broad strokes against an almost abstract background where the painter's touch is omnipresent, diffracting the space into a patchwork of colours that become almost motifs. Organised in alternating clusters of hatchings, the blues, greys and whites occupy the upper air space of the composition, while a cameo of yellow ochres evokes the earthy aspect of the ground. The space is thus more symbolic than topographical, where the straight tree on the left is a sign that the scene takes place outdoors. Taking up the codes of medieval icon painting, which she appropriated, Goncharova here experiments with a radical simplification of space that would lead her to rayonism. Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was a Russian painter who became a naturalized French citizen in 1939. Educated in Moscow, she devoted herself to painting after meeting Michel Larionov (1881-1964), who became her husband. From 1907, after impressionist and cubist experiments, she developed a personal neo-primitive style, strongly influenced by icons and popular Russian imagery (loubok). Religious and peasant themes thus permeate her work. In 1906, she took part in the Russian art exhibition organised by Serge de Diaghilev (1872-1929) at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, and then, in December 1909, with Larionov, launched neo-primitivism at the third Golden Fleece exhibition. Always in the avant-garde, she took part in the Futurist movement (1911), then in the creation of Rayonism (1912-1913), a non-figurative movement whose manifesto they would write. Present on the entire European scene, Goncharova exhibited for the Blaue Reiter in Munich in 1912, then at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. In 1913, a major retrospective exhibition was held in Moscow, with a catalogue of nearly 700 numbers, and in 1914 she exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, alongside Larionov, Alexandra Exter (1882-1949) and Georges Yakoulov (1884-1928). It was also in 1914 that she produced the series of lithographs entitled Mystical Images of War and created the sets for Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel for the Ballets Russes. She exhibited with Larionov at the Paul Guillaume Gallery, with a preface to the catalogue by Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1918, she settled permanently in Paris with Larionov and became one of the main painters for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, for whom she designed the sets for Stravinsky's Les Noces (1882-1971), as well as for Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960) and her Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo. A painter of the Paris School, Goncharova was also a member of the Salon d'Automne since 1921, and regularly participated in the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Indépendants. Although the war and post-war period was a difficult one for Goncharova and Larionov, it was in 1954, on the occasion of Diaghilev's major retrospectives in London, that they regained their fame. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris devoted a retrospective to them after their death. In 2019, the Tate Modern in London will hold the first retrospective solely on his work.Provenance: Private collection Certificate: Jean Chauvelin, Paris. Signatur: Signed lower left in Latin 'N. Gontacharova'
VASSILY KANDINSKY , MOSCOW, 1866 - NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE,1944Church in MurnauOil on board 35 x 46.8 cmDominating with its rectilinear silhouette the few houses that surround it, this small church emerges among their roofs. Like a familiar landmark in a dreamlike landscape, its bulbous bell tower and curved pediment offer the characteristics of Baroque architecture in the midst of rugged countryside. In fact, in front of the religious building, nature competes in height with the two mountains that bar the horizon and confront its yellow ochre façade with their red and blue masses. The confrontation here is first of all through colour, where the warm tones, predominantly yellow, clash with the red flow that descends from the mountain to invade the roofs in an orange mixture. Overlooking this, it is a colder cobalt blue that occupies the sky and the mountain ridge. It is therefore colour that governs the composition. But this cohabitation of bright and saturated tones finds its harmony through the modulation of an apparent and regular touch. From the foreground to the background, the paintbrush hints at its oblique hatchings, giving the landscape movement, almost a framework. And indeed, apart from the silhouette of the church, everything here is sloping. The slope of the mountains, but also the slope of the meadows in the foreground, right down to the trees whose trunks are leaning. The passage of the clouds is part of this same dynamic, accentuating a sense of reading which, from the church, takes us beyond the mountains. Reduced to their simplest expressions, the forms, if still camping a landscape, seem nevertheless to free themselves from it to lead us towards abstraction, that of an interior landscape which expresses an interiorized vision of the painter.Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter, naturalized German and then French, considered as the first abstract artist. After an initial training in law at the University of Moscow, he began an artistic career at the age of 30 by enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. His first outstanding work is his Blue Rider (1903), in which his taste for colour and for a marked touch, but in a post-impressionist approach, is already apparent. In 1908, after many trips throughout Europe, he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau where he developed his own style that would lead him to abstraction. His use of colour began to break free of form. Pure and saturated, they seek to render the artist's inner necessity rather than to imitate reality. Our work dates from this period and can be compared with two other oil paintings on cardboard in which the same church can be seen from different viewpoints. Autumn Landscape with Church, from the previous year, in the Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki, shows the church from the front, in the background, while Murnau Study, Landscape with Church, in the Kunstmuseum in Basel (on deposit with the Im Obersteg Foundation), shows the church at an identical angle to our work, but to the right. Also dated 1909, it shows distortions that already indicate the artist's advance towards abstraction. The next step, Church in Murnau of 1910, which is kept in the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich, is a decisive step towards abstraction, where pure colours are freed from contours and replace figurative representation. His manifesto, Of the Spiritual in Art and in Painting in Particular, appeared the following year, 1911.Provenance: private collection, St Petersburg, USSR, 1967; private collection, Paris, France, 1969. Certificate: Jean Chauvelin (2020) Signatur: Dated and signed lower left 'Kandinsky 1909'Scientific analysis by Laurette Thomas and Iliena Cassan, (2007) According to Mrs. Vivian Endicott Barnett, consulted by email, the work is to be compared, with nos. 278-279 of 1909 in the first volume of the catalogue raisonné of Kandinsky's painted work by Roethel & Benjamin.
KUNDIKA ET PLATEAU EN ALLIAGE DE CUIVRE DORÉTIBET, XIXE SIÈCLEInset with turquoise and spinels;Himalayan Art Resources item no. 205093 17 cm (6 3/4 in.) high; With stand: 23 cm (9 1/8 in.) highFootnotes:A GILT COPPER ALLOY KUNDIKA AND BASIN TIBET, 19TH CENTURY 西藏 十九世紀 銅鎏金嵌寶軍持連供盤 This rare and complete set includes a basin chased with floral scrolls around the Eight Precious Symbols separated by petal-shaped cartouches borders and a kundika incised with multi-layered lotus petals. The kundika is a religious water vessel with ancient roots tracing back to the earliest Hindu and Buddhist traditions of India. Examples in China are known as early as the Tang Dynasty, where it served as one of several attributes associated with Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin. As noted by Pal, 'such vessels were commissioned for use in Tibetan monasteries and temples and were used by Tibetan monks to rinse their mouths of impurities before prayer or after meals (Pal, The Art of Tibet, 1969, p. 158).Provenance: Michael Backman Ltd., LondonFor further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
NO RESERVE Friedman (Terry) The Eighteenth-Century Church in Britain, 2011 § Binski (Paul) Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice, and the Decorated Style 1290-1350, 2014 § Hamling (Tara) Decorating the 'Godly' Household: Religious Art in Post-Reformation Britain, 2010 § Fitchen (John) The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection, reprint, Oxford, 1967 § Kendall (Derek) The City of London Churches, 1998, illustrations, original cloth or boards with dust-jackets, the first three New Haven and London; and c.40 others on Ecclesiastical art and architecture and the Church, 4to & 8vo (c.45)
NO RESERVE Knowles (David) The Religious Orders in England, 3 vol., vol.2 reprint, Cambridge, 1948-61 § Harvey (John) Mediaeval Architects: A Biographical Dictionary down to 1550, revised edition, supplement loosely inserted, 1987 § Wood (Margaret) The English Mediaeval House, 1981 § Blair (J.) and Nigel Ramsay. English Medieval Industries, London and New York, 2001 § Quiney (Anthony) Townhouses of Medieval Britain, New Haven and London, 2003 § Peña (Ignacio) The Christian Art of Byzantine Syria, 1996 § Firnie (Eric) Romanesque Architecture: The First Style of the European Age, New Haven and London, 2014, illustrations, original cloth, all but the first with dust-jackets; and c.60 others on the Middle Ages and medieval art & architecture, v.s. (c.65)
JOSEP LLIMONA BRUGUERA (Barcelona, 1864 - 1934)."Modesty", ca. 1890.Polychrome stucco.Signed. Stamp of Esteve & Cia, numbered 1052.Size: 42 x 33 x 16 cm.In the allegory of Modesty, Josep Llimona poured his singular sensitivity into capturing his ideal of femininity through a naturalistic but idealised language: the figure, with fine, harmonious features, withdraws into herself, silent and inaccessible.Josep Limona is remembered as the most important Catalan sculptor of Modernisme. Trained at the Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona, he obtained a scholarship to go to Rome in 1880. During his stay in Italy he was influenced by Florentine Renaissance sculpture. With the works he sent from there he already won prizes (gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona in 1888), as well as a great reputation. With his brother Joan he founded the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc, a Catalan artistic association of a religious nature (the two brothers were deep believers). By the mid-1990s his style was already drifting towards full modernism. He received the prize of honour at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts held in 1907 in Barcelona. From 1900 onwards he concentrated on his famous female nudes, and in 1914 he created, in collaboration with Gaudí, his impressive "Risen Christ". His artistic genius also manifested itself in large public monuments such as the equestrian statue of Saint George in Montjuic Park in Barcelona, as well as in works of funerary imagery, such as the pantheons he created for various cemeteries. In addition to exhibiting in Barcelona and other Catalan cities, he exhibited his work in Madrid, Brussels, Paris, Buenos Aires and Rosario (Argentina). He was president of the Barcelona Museum Board from 1918 to 1924, and again from 1931 until his death in 1934. Throughout his life he received numerous decorations, including those awarded by the French and Italian governments. He was also awarded the Gold Medal of the City of Barcelona in 1932, in recognition of his extraordinary work in the development of museum activity. Llimona's work can be found in the Monastery of Montserrat, the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Reina Sofia Museum, among others.
LUIS BLESA Y PRATS (Valencia, 1875-ca. 1934)"Reynaldo and Armida".Oil on canvas. Triptych.It has a perforation on the left side.It has slight damage to the maro.Signed, titled and dated in the lower left corner.Measurements: 110 x 51 cm (x2); 122 x 150 cm; 134 x 284 cm (frame).Triptych with frame made by the author, which presents a theme based on the text "Jerusalem liberated", written by Torcuato Tasso. The work tells the story of Rinaldo, a Christian warrior, and Armida, who has been sent to prevent the Christians from completing their mission and is about to assassinate Rinaldo while he sleeps, but instead falls in love and creates an enchanted garden where she captures him as a prisoner. Finally, two of Rinaldo's companions find him and place a shield over his face so that he can see his image and remember who he is. Rinaldo can barely resist Armida's pleas, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the end of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise, prevents Armida from giving in to her suicidal impulses and offers to return her to her lost throne. She yields to this and becomes a Christian.Luis Blesa was a teacher at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he studied. He regularly submitted his works to art competitions and contests and was awarded an honourable mention at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1897 and a third medal at the 1910 edition. A Spanish painter specialising in religious themes, the present work is a smaller copy of the canvas painted by Velázquez around 1631-32, now in the Museo del Prado (248 x 169 cm). It is one of the most famous works by the Sevillian master, and was painted for the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Placido in Madrid. It is said to have been donated by Philip IV as a token of repentance after having seduced a nun who was professing there. It is a work of unusual modernity and elegance, with the figure of Christ vividly illuminated by a tenebrist light, standing out against a dark, neutral background. Special mention should be made of the head, fallen on the chest, with a lock of hair that hides part of the face, a seemingly simple device but one that multiplies the pathos of the image. In this work Velázquez achieves such serenity, majesty and humanity that it has become the best known and most effective image of Spanish devotion.
FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (Fuendetodos, Zaragoza, 1746 - Bordeaux, France, 1828)."Los desastres de la guerra" (79 etchings).First edition. 1863. Published by the Real Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando. MadridEdition of 80 etchings on Guarro paper (79 etchings, copy number 47 is missing).Numbered and titled copies in plate.Hard cover.Presents marks of use and deterioration due to the passage of time.Size: 17,5 x 22 cm (print), 24 x 34 cm (paper), 25 x 37 x 6 cm (book).Belonging to the book published by the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando of the collection of prints, the first edition of "Los desastres de la guerra" (1923). This first edition appeared in 1863, and others followed in 1892, 1903 and 1906, this one being the most sought after and sought after.Edition of prints in which Francisco de Goya reflected the horror unleashed during the War of Independence, which began in 1808. Enrique Lafuente Ferrari's contribution to the study of Goya's Disasters of War is considered fundamental. To him we owe the first attempt, with scientific criteria, to systematise the analysis of the Disasters, becoming an obligatory point of reference in subsequent studies."The Disasters of War", a work from the Aragonese painter's last period, have become over time a series of timeless prints that can be applied to any war in the world. Death, torture, hunger, disease, lack of solidarity... these are all disasters that are part of any war, showing the bitterest side of the human being. Goya began to engrave the plates around 1810, after returning from the front, and finished the series in 1815. "The Disasters" give free rein to one of the fundamental aesthetic categories of modernity: pathos. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Goya did not set up a systematic, serial chronicle of events, but transformed or eliminated the anecdotal in order to arrive at a universal vision.They exemplify a world in crisis, understood in the sense of change. Conceptually, they reveal the fissures of a socio-political structure based on an impeded stratification of the strata, and of a system of values based on the immobilism of customs and the tyrannical religious oppression of consciences.Aesthetically, they anticipate modern sensibility and the shift towards an art dominated by subjectivity and creative freedom. Biographically, the Caprichos appear in one of the most decisive decades in Goya's life and artistic production. This is why successive generations of writers, artists and intellectuals over the last two centuries have been unable to ignore its status as a symbol: a symbol of the end of the Ancien Régime, of the change in taste between Classicist and Romantic aesthetics, and of the crisis that occurred in the biography and art of a universal creator.The historiography specialising in Goya has established a sequence of events supposedly determining the creation of the Caprichos. This sequence appears to be characterised by a progressive departure from normative art and a consequent approach to the domain of invention. This new conception of art is linked to the biographical episodes of the serious illness that left him deaf, his intimate relations with the Duchess of Alba and his ties of friendship with the circle of enlightened intellectuals. The conclusion is that Goya needed a series of satirical prints that would provide a multiple response to his inventive perception of art, his progressive isolation, his distrust of human beings and his social concerns rooted in the Enlightenment.
Ai Weiwei (born 1957)The Papercut Portfolio The complete portfolio of eight papercuts, 2019, on wove paper, with title page, colophon and text, stamp-numbered 161 on the colophon, from the edition of 250, each print signed in pencil, published by Taschen, London, the sheets loose (as issued), each papercut contained in an envelope, all contained within the original red clothbound clamshell portfolioEach 600 x 600mm. (23 5/8 x 23 5/8in.); Portfolio 650 x 645 x 80mm. (25 5/8 x 25 3/8 x 3 1/8 in.)Footnotes:Papercutting is an ancient Chinese art and the intricately cut papers are used for festivals, religious ceremonies and everyday decoration. In his Papercut portfolio, Ai Weiwei incorporates many aspects of his life and work, referencing links between contemporary and traditional culture with images of Neolithic vases branded with the Coca-Cola logo, his stay in New York from 1982 to 1993 with a view of the Manhattan skyline, his return to Beijing with sculptures made from antique items such as chairs and chandeliers and his challenges to authority with an obscene gesture directed towards the walls of the Forbidden City.The vibrant red is associated with good fortune in Chinese culture and can also be seen as an allusion to politics, one of many dichotomies present in the artist's work.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ** VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
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