FERNANDO BOTERO (B. 1932)La Casa de Rosalba Correa 2001 signed and dated 01oil on canvas179.2 by 192 cm.70 9/16 by 75 9/16 in.Footnotes:ProvenanceCollection of the artist, EuropePrivate Collection, Turkey (acquired from the above in 2013)Acquired directly from the above by the present ownerExecuted in Fernando Botero's distinctively voluptuous signature style, La Casa de Rosalba Correa from 2001 is a magnificently complex and distinctive painting by one of the most important Colombian modern artists of our day. Having studied under Roberto Longhi, a renowned authority on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, Botero obtained a remarkable art historical knowledge of Western Classicism that transfuses his work. The canon of art history, especially the European one became a rich source of inspiration whilst studying Italy's Renaissance frescoes, Spain's Golden Age masters and France's turn-of-the-century School of Paris on his travels in the 1950's. Profoundly influenced by these masterworks, Botero embarked on a quest to critically re-interpret iconic paintings, paying homage to the great artists of the past whilst finding true originality doing so. Not unlike Picasso, whose Cubist breakthrough came after experimenting with the construction of a guitar, Botero had his artistic revolution with a mandolin. In 1956, the artist painted an image of a mandolin resting on a table and decided to place a disproportionately small hole in the body of the instrument, thus transforming it into an object of exaggerated mass and monumentality; a lifelong fascination with the exploration of volume was born. Well known for subjects ranging from the Old Masters to circus scenes, bullfights, domestic life and political satire, the present work falls into a theme of brothel scenes and bacchanalia that the artist revisited throughout his career. 'There was a red-light district in Medellín at the time,' the artist recollects of his adolescence in Colombia. 'It was an easy-going place; class lines blurred in a sort of never-ending carnival, a permanent street party.' If he sometimes 'felt like [he] was the local Toulouse-Lautrec,' a sensitive observer of brothels and their late-night habitués, he began to see beauty in all the vagaries of the human body and humour, as well, in its fleshy flamboyance and grandiosity (the artist in: Ana María Escallón, 'From the Inside Out: An Interview with Fernando Botero', Botero: New Works on Canvas, New York 1997, p. 13). Art historically, Botero's brothel scenes are inspired by the lush, arresting depictions of courtesans by the medieval master Lucas Cranach and he has revisited the theme both in painting and sculpture throughout his career. The vibrant, candy coloured La Casa de Rosalba Correa shares clear characteristics with earlier depictions of the theme, notably La casa de Raquel Vega, from 1975 in the collection of Mumok, Vienna, House Mariduque from 1977 and The House of Amanda Ramírez of 1988 which is in the permanent collection of the Museo de Antioquia in Medellin. The latter, shows a similar rudimentary structure of the room, the stage if you will, whilst the protagonists and distinct elements of the scene differ. We appear to be privy to the final stages of a debauched evening in a room that seems too small to hold its curvaceous inhabitants. The smell of tobacco and stale alcohol lingers in the air, and a swarm of flies' buzzes around a lone lightbulb. Much of the night's events have unfolded but some protagonists are still awake and active. A nude couple shares a large bed in the centre of the room. They have fallen asleep in a loose embrace and only a half-eaten plate of food at the man's feet and the green bottle clutched tightly in his hand hint at the preceding evening. He wears a wedding band suggesting an act of infidelity. Two men, one apparently passed out under the bed not unlike the array of discarded clothes around the room, the other taking a large swig from a bottle, along with a further empty bottle and cigarette buds strewn all over the floor tie in with the theme of a raucous party. In the foreground, a man has swept up a somewhat dispassionate woman in a luscious green dress and clutches her tightly in his arms. The only protagonist of the scene to look straight out that the viewer, to acknowledge our peeping eye without judgement, is a cat reclining elegantly in the lower right corner. Symbolic for femininity and domesticity, cats feature in much of Botero's work, often accompanying a dominant matriarch or a sensual nude and in La Casa de Rosalba Correa, it is easy to draw on comparisons with Manet's famous masterpiece Olympia. Despite the scene drawing up questions of male prerogative, Botero's female protagonists tend to be strong, self-alert characters, in control of their situation and playing with their allure. The black feline with its piercing green eyes makes us keenly aware that we are trespassing into this scene, the viewer has become a voyeur, an active participant and we have been spotted. Using humorous and exaggerated elements in his work, Botero breaks with the established classical tradition of eternalizing the classically heroic and brave and adds a fresh approach to age old themes. Botero shifts classical art historical topics into the realm of the common and trivial, the realm of day-to-day life, often infused with a melange of his own lived experiences and the air of his native Colombia.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * TP* VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.TP Lot will be moved to an offsite storage location (Cadogan Tate, Auction House Services, 241 Acton Lane, London NW10 7NP, UK) and will only be available for collection from this location at the date stated in the catalogue. Please note transfer and storage charges will apply to any lots not collected after 14 calendar days from the auction date.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
We found 77168 price guide item(s) matching your search
There are 77168 lots that match your search criteria. Subscribe now to get instant access to the full price guide service.
Click here to subscribe- List
- Grid
-
77168 item(s)/page
Emily Beatrice Bland (British, 1864-c.1951), still life with vase of flowers (1920). Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Framed. Image size 60 x 49cm. Condition Report: Good condition overall, with some visible wear consistent with age, including various small, pin-size holes mainly around the edges of the canvas.
PANKHURST (CHRISTABEL)Typed letter signed ('Christabel Pankhurst') to The Hon. W. Ormsby Gore, M.P., asking him to speak at a WSPU meeting at the Queen's Hall, one page, on WSPU headed paper, type faded but signature strong, creased at folds, 4vo (255 x 202mm.), Clement's Inn, Strand, 14 September 1910; with a collection of autograph letters from other leading members of the fight for women's suffrage such as Millicent Garrett Fawcett (accepting an invitation, plus additional cut signature and woodburytype portrait photograph), Emmeline Pethick Lawrence (signed 'Sister Emmeline' at the West London Mission, 1895), Charlotte Despard (two, one accepting an invitation, the other sending a poem by Shelley, 1911 and 1912), Mary R. Richardson ('...to serve a great cause is the supreme happiness in life... there is still much to do...', 1953), Emily Davies, Blanche Caulfield (group), Frederick Pethick Lawrence (to Gladys Harron of Votes for Women with essays written by her etc.), c.50 pages, various sizes, c.1895 to 1953Footnotes:'THE WORLD WILL BECOME A SAFER & HAPPIER PLACE TO LIVE IN': A collection of miscellaneous letters from leading suffragettes including words of hope from Mary R. Richardson, the militant who, in 1914, famously slashed Velazquez's Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery in London.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
TIGHE (MARY)Manuscript notebook titled 'Sonnets', on the first leaf, containing some 140 poems, written in ink in a fine closely written hand, including poems from 'Verses Transcribed for H.T.' and later works, beginning with 'Composed on the White Sands near Arklow', 'Written at Scarborough 1799', 'Written in Autumn 1795', 'Written in the Church yard at Malvern', 'Addressed to the Ladies of Llangollen Vale', 'Written for Angela 1802', 'The Vartree', 'A Faithfull Friend is the Medicine of Life', 'To the Memory of Margaret Tighe', 'Verses written in Solitude', her long ballads 'Cluen – An Elegy' and 'Bryan Byrne of Glenmalure' and ending with translations from Horace, Catullus and Petrarch, etc., with numerous amendments and additions, index, inscribed in pencil on flyleaf in another hand 'from The Library/ Rosanagh/ Co. Wicklow' with light pencil markings throughout, 396 numbered pages, one extra half leaf tipped in, bookplate of Henry Tighe, marbled endpapers, contemporary red straight-grained morocco gilt, rubbed, small nick in spine, upper cover soiled at corner, g.e., 16mo (118 x 94mm.), [n.p.], c.1806Footnotes:'OH THOU! WHOM NE'ER MY CONSTANT HEART/ ONE MOMENT HATH FORGOT/ THO' FATE SEVERE HAS BID US PART/ YET STILL FORGET ME NOT': A rediscovered notebook from the poet who inspired Keats.Irish poet Mary Tighe (1772-1810) '...was a crucial force in shaping British Romanticism. With remarkable vitality and virtuosity, her poetry engaged the central issues of the period, often in advance of writers now considered canonical, and commanded the attention and respect of her contemporaries....These poems demonstrate the technical virtuosity with which Tighe movingly wrote about the tensions between love and loss, duty and desire, the spiritual and the sensuous, loyalty and betrayal, nation and family, the Irish and the British, and much more, while struggling with debilitating illness...' (Paula R. Feldman & Brian C. Cooney, The Collected Poetry of Mary Tighe, 2016, p.1). The majority of the poems in our volume are included in 'Verses Transcribed for H.T.', an illustrated manuscript in two volumes dedicated and presented to her husband (and cousin) Henry Tighe, now held in the National Library of Ireland as part of the Hamilton of Hamworth Papers (MS 49, 155/2). These volumes were copied out by the poet sometime between 1803 and June 1808 and incorporate fair copies of her poems written at Brompton, London, where she spent the winter of 1804 to the summer of 1805 with beautifully drawn calligraphic headings and pen and ink vignettes. This manuscript is seen, until now, as the most authoritative text for most of Tighe's shorter poems: 'She carefully chose their arrangement; for example, she grouped all of her sonnets together, and she did not use strict chronology. Some of her extant poems were absent, but these omissions may have been a result of her not having them immediately at hand... Poems composed very late in her life are also not included...' (Feldman & Cooney, p.17). It may be that she used our volume as a source for the 'Verses' and, rather than the poems being not available to her, she made the editorial decision to leave them out.Much of the content tallies with that of the 'Verses' but with notable differences in the order. The first thirty or so poems follow the same order as the 'Sonnets' section of Volume I but 'Written on the acquittal of Hardy' is included before 'Addressed to the Ladies of Llangollen Vale', thus causing a change to the numbering. In the final version of 'Verses' she moves the Hardy poem to Volume II. Whilst the 'Verses' include 113 poems, our manuscript has around 140, and includes additional material from what bibliographers Feldman and Cooney call her 'Late Poems & Fugitive Verse', such as 'Eclipse', 'In Memory of Margaret Tighe taken from us June 7th 1804' and 'Verses written in Solitude'. She ends our manuscript by showing off her extensive classical education encouraged by her mother Theodosia Tighe (Methodist leader, friend of John Wesley, and co-founder of the Dublin House of Refuge) with translations from Horace, Catullus and Petrarch. The Tighes were living in times of great upheaval in Ireland and much of her work is highly political – included here her long ballad 'Bryan Byrne' which was based on real people and events.Our manuscript appears to be a working document with many amendments and neat crossings out – a half leaf with three additional verses has been bound into the poem 'Bryan Byrne' for example. In several places the poet has made corrections to our manuscript which made their way into the finished NLI manuscript (in 'Adorea' she replaces 'soothed and enraptured' with 'soothed or enraptured' for example – and in 'Pleasure', her note on the Senegal River has been much amended). In addition, some poems are lacking the titles that would be included in the final version. There would thus seem to be new material here which would bear much further research.Tighe published only one work in her lifetime, Psyche; or, the Legend of Love, which was put out in a private edition of fifty copies for the benefit of family and friends in 1805. However, whilst having many admirers amongst her literary circle (including Thomas Moore, Joseph Cooper Walker and the Ladies of Llangollen) it was the posthumous publication of Psyche, with Other Poems, in 1811 and in several later editions, that made her name widely known and established her literary reputation. Whilst she became to be seen as '...an exemplar of patiently (and picturesquely) long-suffering femininity...' (Pam Perkins, ODNB), Tighe's work was an influence on several better-known writers such as John Keats, Lord Byron, Charlotte Brontë and Felicia Hemans. After a hiatus in the twentieth century, her poems are once again enjoying recognition and it was only recently, in 2012, that her novel Selena was finally published for the first time. Tighe is now 'recognised as a great romantic-era woman poet of the sublime, who offered a complex, sophisticated, and aesthetically rich portrait of female sense and sensibility in her work' (Harriet Kramer Linkin, DIB). There is no volume matching the description of ours listed in the definitive Bibliography of Manuscript Sources in the latest Collected Poetry, so it could therefore be supposed that ours is a hitherto unknown, or at least rediscovered manuscript. The National Library of Ireland, Dublin holds the greater proportion of her extant manuscript works in the form of notebooks and fair copies of her poems, including 'Verses Transcribed for H.T.'. The family destroyed her journals after her death, but other manuscript material can be found in various commonplace books held elsewhere. Provenance: Henry Tighe (1771-1836) of Rosanna, Co. Wicklow (bookplate); thence by descent to the present owner.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
![AUSTEN (JANE)Autograph letter signed ('Yours affec.ey/ J. Austen') to 'My Dear Anna [Lefroy]', informing her niece that 'Your](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/53592cc0-e59f-46df-bcaf-ae5500afca79/55f2b75a-1e3d-4f71-9b89-ae5500b06f30/468x382.jpg)
AUSTEN (JANE)Autograph letter signed ('Yours affec.ey/ J. Austen') to 'My Dear Anna [Lefroy]', informing her niece that 'Your Grandmama is very much obliged to you for the turkey, but cannot help grieving that you should not keep it for yourselves. Such High-mindedness is almost more than she can bear. She will be very glad of better weather that she may see you again, & so we shall all', one page, written in brown ink on a bifolium watermarked [Ga]ter [18]15, small stain in top right corner, folded and addressed on reverse to 'Mrs B. Lefroy/ Wyards' (panel above cut away), contained in envelope inscribed 'Autograph of Jane Austen' and with blue Lefroy family crest incorporating motto 'Mutare sperno' stamped on flap, 24mo (111 x 94mm.) [Chawton], Thursday [December? 1816]Footnotes:'YOUR GRANDMAMA IS VERY MUCH OBLIGED TO YOU FOR THE TURKEY': A REDISCOVERED JANE AUSTEN LETTER WRITTEN AT THE TIME OF HER LAST CHRISTMAS.Anna Austen Lefroy (Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen, 1793-1872), the author's niece, was the daughter of Jane's brother James, and his first wife Anne Mathew. As a child she was very close to her aunt, and after her mother's death she stayed with Jane for two years at Steventon, before her father remarried. Anna married Benjamin Lefroy in 1814 and the following August the couple moved to Wyards, a farmhouse a mile from Chawton. Anna and Jane were frequent correspondents throughout the author's life and the letters they exchanged are often very revealing. Anna also became an important contributor to the Austen life story through the so-called Lefroy MS.Despite the support and encouragement of her aunt, Anna's own literary ambitions remained largely frustrated. But she did contribute to a continuation of an early Austen story called Evelyn, as well as the author's unfinished Sanditon, the manuscript of which she inherited. Although she never managed to complete the novel she was writing, the progress of which she shared with her aunt, Anna did publish two children's books, The Winter's Tale: To Which is Added Little Bertram's Dream (1841) and Springtide (1842). An anonymous story called Mary Hamilton, written by 'A Niece of the late Miss Austen' and published in a periodical in 1834, has also been attributed to her (see https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number19/sabor-james-cavan.pdf).'Grandmama', the grateful recipient of the turkey, is Jane's mother and Anna's grandmother, Cassandra Austen (1739-1827), who was living at Chawton with her daughters and was to survive Jane by some ten years despite her own ill health. The year before Jane had spent Christmas sending out presentation copies of Emma, but by the autumn of 1816 she was visibly unwell with what is now thought to have been Addison's Disease. Although she made little of her illness to her friends, and sacrificed her own needs for comfort to those of her mother, she did talk to her sister Cassandra of her backaches, nausea and tiredness. Few letters from that period are known (or were perhaps written), but on December 16, her birthday, she wrote at length to her brother Edward, barely mentioning her own situation. Apart from the present letter, only a New Year note survives from that Christmas of 1816, which was to be Jane's last. In January 1817 she recovered sufficiently to start work on Sanditon, but by the end of March she had stopped writing, was moved to Winchester in May, and on 18 July she died.Our letter is on paper watermarked [Ga]ter [18]15, from the Hampshire firm of John and William Gater, Up Mills, West End, South Stoneham. The Morgan Library has several Jane Austen letters on Gater's paper, one to Cassandra from the same period, 8 January 1817, the remainder from 1808-1809. This, along with the fact that Anna Lefroy moved to Wyards in 1815 and that Jane was in London rather than Chawton that December, helps to confirm that our letter was written the following Christmas.The text of the letter was first published by R.W. Chapman in Jane Austen's Letters to her Cassandra and Others, OUP, 1932 & 1952 (no. 185), and was taken from a copy in the possession of Miss Mary Isabella Lefroy, Anna's grand-daughter, who donated the manuscript of Sanditon to King's College, Cambridge. Chapman describes the version he saw thus: 'Copy by Anna Lefroy (on paper with watermark dated 1854), who adds: 'This note was written the winter of 1816 & the original is in the possession of W. Chambers Lefroy the Grandson of the Receiver''.Dierdre Le Faye (Jane Austen's Letters, OUP, 2011, no. 147(C) and note on p.461) still found the 'original MS untraced', and records the copy and the comment as being by Anna's daughter Fanny-Caroline Lefroy, made in her mother's volume of family history notes, the Lefroy MS. It was also transcribed in Fanny-Caroline Lefroy's own family history manuscript. The original autograph letter offered here was rediscovered last year in a box containing papers of a descendant of the Lefroy family.Provenance: Anna Lefroy; and thence by decent to the present owner.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
NIGHTINGALE (FLORENCE)Series of fifteen letters, comprising eleven autograph, two in another hand (one signed, with autograph subscription), one postcard and a printed facsimile, signed variously ('Florence Nightingale', 'F.N.', 'F. Nightingale'), to her good friend Jessie Lennox ('My dear Miss Lennox'), one of the original Nightingale Nurses, in pencil and ink, some marked 'Private' or 'Most Private', written in the fondest terms and taking a great interest in her work ('...I give you joy that you have made this a life-work, a 'calling' in the true meaning of the word...'), rejoicing at the progress already made in the profession ('...God has granted such an immense change during the last 30 years to Hospitals & Infirmaries & Districts in trained nursing...'), asking for her advice and discussing at length over several letters the duties required of a matron who would take charge in an 'Industrial Boys' Home' ('...It will not be a nurse to a hospital but rather to prevent the boys having to go into Hospital; to look after them & mother them... A Matron in the sense that each house at say Rugby School has a matron...'), voicing her expectations ('...I do not expect that we should succeed in getting a lady...'), but wishing for a 'mother to all these boys – especially to the younger ones', emphasising 'As in a hospital, the most important part of a Matron is to mother & care for all the nurses, body & soul', to 'have such charge of under clothing & of cleanliness of the boys & of their little ailments... and of – what? And of – what?...', mentioning the difficulties of persuading 'a man-Committee' to grant them a woman Matron ('...the man-Committee does not seem to think a woman has any business in the Barrack huts at all... In fact I do not expect to get her at all...'), the work of the District Nurses ('...not only to nurse but to teach the families how to nurse... cleanliness & ventilation... Sick Cookery... sick appliances, bedding, warm clothing...'), offering her a present ('...would you not like... some large, some Medical book?...'), making arrangements and sending gifts ('...a packet of cards for the little ones...'), 63 pages, dust-staining and marks, the majority 8vo (c.178 x 114mm.), Claydon House and 10 South Street, Park Lane, W., 9 September 1883 to 7 June 1896 (15)Footnotes:'THE MAN-COMMITTEE DOES NOT SEEM TO THINK A WOMAN HAS ANY BUSINESS IN THE BARRACK HUTS AT ALL': Florence Nightingale 'the mother of modern nursing' on pastoral care, difficulties with male committees and the role of the district nurse.Florence Nightingale is widely acknowledged as 'The Mother of Modern Nursing' and here she writes to one of her acolytes, Jessie Lennox, in a long correspondence discussing the ideal role of the matron she wishes to appoint to take over the care of some 500 poor boys in an 'industrial boys home'. The matron, she writes, should embody the practicalities of a trained nurse with a mother's care for her charges, with an emphasis on good diet, warm clothing and good shoes. She cites the story of Ella Pirrie, the Lady Superintendent of the Union Infirmary, Belfast, who persuaded a child struck dumb to speak by adopting this more gentle approach when harsher means had failed. She asks Lennox's advice in drawing up a set of requirements to put forward in the clearest possible terms to the 'man committee' as she puts it. Her frustration with such committees is evident, even for an influential person such as herself, but she recognises the enormous progress that has already been made in changing the status of nursing into a highly trained respectable profession. She goes on to speak of the role of the district nurse in the community ('...if the nurse has really that influence which she ought to have in the Patient's family, do they not become ashamed of letting her see the man or the woman drunk again? And does not that exercise a reforming influence?...'). Also included in the lot is a facsimile letter dated May 1900 addressed to all her nurses ('My dear children') in which she recognises her role as the Mother of Nursing ('...You have called me your mother-chief, it is an honour to me & a great honour, to call you my children...'), speaking too of advances in medicine and the professionalisation of nursing but ending, however, with a swipe at the suffragists ('...Woman was the home drudge. Now she is the teacher. Let her not forfeit it by being the arrogant – the 'Equal with men'...').The recipient of our letters, Jessie Lennox (1830-1933), was one of the original 'Nightingale Nurses' who trained at the Florence Nightingale School at St. Thomas's Hospital, London in the 1860's. According to her obituary in the British Journal of Nursing of February 1933 she also had the distinction of being a personal friend of David Livingstone, whom she met in Africa whilst working as a missionary and maid to Anna Mackenzie, who accompanied Mary Livingstone when she was reunited with her husband at the Zambezi in 1862. After her nursing training she was one of the first six Army Sisters appointed by the War Office to the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, and held the post of matron of the Sick Children's Hospital in Belfast for eighteen years. Her papers are held at the Florence Nightingale Museum. According to Lynn Macdonald, some 29 letters from Lennox to Florence Nightingale are extant (ed. Lynn Macdonald, Extending Nursing: Florence Nightingale Collected Works, 2009) but only a few from the other side of the correspondence are in the public domain. Photographs of her are also held at the Livingstone Family Trust.According to a letter from Jessie Lennox included in the lot, one letter from the series appears to have been sent by her to Dr Lilias Maclay (b.1893) in 1917, seven years after the death of Florence Nightingale: '...her body is at rest but her work is still very much with us...' she writes in a distinctive hand. Maclay's father was Lord Maclay of Duchal House, Kilmacolm, the founder of the Maclay-Macintyre shipping firm. She had enrolled at Glasgow University to study for a medical degree in 1912, passing the course with first class certificates in clinical surgery. During the First War she served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt and is one of the few females featured in the University's Roll of Honour (see www.universitystory.gl.ac.uk). After her marriage to John Edmund Hamilton in 1926 she practised as a doctor in Glasgow and Edinburgh. A great supporter of equal rights for women, she was the President of the YWCA of Great Britain and was Vice-President of Women's Voluntary Services as well as being an active member of the Women's Suffrage Society. The remainder of the letters were bequeathed to Dr Maclay after Lennox's death in 1933 as a solicitor's letter with the lot confirms (The Hon. Mrs J. E. Hamilton being her married name). Lilas' son Patrick (1934-1988) followed his mother into the medical profession, as did her granddaughter, the present owner of the letters. The correspondence has remained in the family until now.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
ALBUM – CONSTANCE MARSDENAutograph album of photographer Constance B. J. Marsden of Redcliffe Gardens, South Kensington, containing some 35 signatures and quotations including Christabel Pankhurst ('Aspirations are proportional to destinies'), Emmeline Pankhurst ('Votes for Women'), Emily Wilding Davison ('Deeds, not Words... March 30th 1909 1 month. Holloway./ July 30th 1909 2 months Holloway (Hunger-Strike)/ Sept. 4th 1909 2 months Strangeways... Oct 20th 1909 1 month (hard) Strangeways (2 Hunger-Strike & Hosepipe)'), Flora Drummond ('...I am writing in honour of one of the best 'Votes for Women' paper sellers...'), Constance Lytton and her alias Jane Warton, Charlotte Despard, Annie Ainsworth, Frederick William Pethick Lawrence, Marion Wallace-Dunlop, Ethel Smyth (musical quotation 'We have waited so long, we will wait now no more' dated June 1913), Catherine Emily Perie ('nurse to Mrs Pankhurst'), Mildred J. Marsden, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, Laura Ainsworth ('Ride on to Victory'), green calf, worn, 4to (165 x 198mm.), 1908 to 1913Footnotes:'ONE OF THE BEST 'VOTES FOR WOMEN' PAPER SELLERS': The album of a WSPU photographer and activist.Constance Marsden's album reads like a 'Who's Who' of the suffrage movement. She was a member of the WSPU and photographed Emmeline Pankhurst in August/September 1913. The portrait was subsequently accepted by the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain for an exhibition at the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street (Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928, 1999, p.548). The entry in the album from Flora Drummond dated July 1910 makes reference to her considerable paper-selling skills on behalf of the cause. In the summer of 1910, she came third in a sales competition run by the WPSU for individually selling 1,448 copies of Votes for Women in a three month period, behind Miss McKenzie of Scarborough (1,797) and Mrs Axed of North Kensington (1,652) (pigott-gorrie.blogspot.com). One of nine siblings, her sister Sybil (a dressmaker trading under the name Madame Mantalini) is known to have shown her suffragist affiliations by making an anti-government statement on her census form of 1911. Her father, Algernon Moses Marsden, was a fine art dealer whose artists included James Tissot, who painted him in 1877, but, by the turn of the century, had been declared bankrupt several times (womanandhersphere.com suffrage-stories blog).As well as containing the signatures of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, other contributors to this album include the suffragette martyr, Emily Wilding Davison, and illustrator Marion Wallace-Dunlop, who is credited with being the first to initiate the hunger strike as a means of retaliation. According to Votes for Women, Ethel Smyth's March of the Women with words by Cicely Hamilton was 'at once a hymn and a call to battle'. Also represented is Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton (known as Constance Lytton), the author of Prisons and Prisoners who signs her alias 'Jane Warton' beneath her own name. Not wishing for preferential treatment due to her social status, she disguised herself, cut her hair and used an alias, taking on the character of 'an ugly London seamstress'. Subsequently, when arrested she suffered the same harsh treatment accorded to other prisoners and was repeatedly force fed, leading to a heart attack and several strokes (her book, a copy of which is offered in the present sale, was written with her left hand). Her extremism went as far as carving 'V' for Votes for Women on her chest whilst in prison using a needle and broken hatpin.Provenance: The Rev. Frederick Hankinson (1875-1960); Reginald Andrew Couzens (b.1904); thence by descent to the present owner.Suffragettes: The Hankinson-Goode Collection (lots 52-110) This remarkable collection of suffragette ephemera was assembled by the current owners' late parents, Myrna and Philip Goode, who inherited and then built on the collection bequeathed to them by the Rev. Frederick Hankinson (see lot 72). As the owners recall: 'Our Great Grandmother took her adopted son, my grandfather, to one of the Rev. Hankinson's churches and that this is how they met. My grandfather, Reginald Andrew Couzens, was born in 1904 and 'Hank' reputedly looked upon him as a surrogate son. My grandfather stayed close to Hank all his life. He did his accounts, cut his hair and various other things, right up until Hank died. My grandmother used to boast about the time that, through Hank, Lord and Lady Pethick Lawrence came to tea. With both our grandparents coming from very ordinary and relatively poor families, it was a huge honour to have gentry in their home. 'When Hank died in 1960, it was discovered that he had left his entire estate to our grandfather. They found Hank's papers and the autograph albums and were fascinated by them. At the time, they were worth very little, and there was little interest in the Suffrage movement, but our parents thought they were important historically. Now, we are amazed at their foresight. The whole lot could easily have ended up being thrown away. The documents were packed into boxes and stored in our grandparents' loft, unsorted, until our grandfather died. My grandmother then gave them to our parents, who began to go through and research them. 'Our parents became more and more interested in the subject and started collecting bits and pieces they came across, which in the 60s and 70s were still cheap to buy. We would go to any postcard fair we came across locally and on holiday, and search through for Suffragette postcards. It was on one of these jaunts in Norfolk that the window-smashers set was discovered. It seems hard to believe, but at that time a lot of the sellers didn't really know who or what Suffragettes were. 'As time went on and material became much better-known and sought-after, our parents decided to invest in some lots that would enhance the collection. They bought the Emily Wilding Davison and Duval collections at auction, the Suffragette newspapers and so on. They wanted their collection to be useful as well as giving them pleasure, and so they put on several exhibitions using their material, and shared documents with researchers, students and museums, including the Museum of London. They gave talks in schools and for societies in the area as well. Although the time has come to place the care of the collection in other hands, Hankinson remains an important part of our family's history and his legacy has had a huge and positive impact on all of us'.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
WELLS (H.G.)The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents... Cheaper Edition, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY TO EDITH NESBIT, inscribed 'To Mrs. Hubert Bland from H.G. Wells' on the half-title, Methuen, 1903; Twelve Stories and a Dream, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY inscribed 'To all the Blands from H.G. Wells (more coming)' on the half-title, New York, Charles Scribner, 1905, BOTH WITH EDITH NESBIT'S BOOKPLATE; In the Days of the Comet, FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY with 'Presentation Copy' blind-stamp on title, ownership inscription of Nesbit ('E. Nesbit Bland') on the front free endpaper, Macmillan, 1906; New Worlds for Old, FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY with 'Presentation Copy' blind-stamp on title, ownership inscription of Hubert Bland (1908) on the front free endpaper, Archibald Constable, 1908; Marriage, FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY with 'Presentation Copy' blind-stamp on title, ownership inscription of Nesbit ('E. Nesbit' in pencil) on the front free endpaper, and with 8 passages marked in the margin with an index of page numerals to these at the end, hinges weakened, Macmillan, 1912, publisher's cloth, worn, 8vo (5)Footnotes:PRESENTATION COPIES FROM H.G. WELLS TO EDITH NESBIT, author of the Railway Children, whom he had met together with her husband Hubert Bland as fellow members of the Fabian Society. Wells wrote that Edith 'was a tall, whimsical, restless, able woman who had been very beautiful and was still very good-looking; and Bland was a thick-set, broad-faced aggressive man, a sort of Tom-cat man. The two of them dramatized life and I had as yet met few people who did that. They loved scenes and 'situations'' (Experiment in Autobiography, 1934). Wells would visit the couple at their 'easy-going hospitable Bohemian household at Well Hall, Eltham' or their house at Dymchurch. The friendship continued, despite in 1906 Bland rallying support to 'defeat Wells's attempt to take over and change the Fabian Society' (ODNB) until 1908, when Wells 'made a bid for Bland's daughter, the plump, attractive Rosamund... [They tried to run away together] but Bland caught up with them at Paddington Station, punched Wells, and took Rosamund home' (ODNB). The two inscribed books were inscribed during the height of the authors' friendship between 1903 and 1905. Edith's copy of Marriage (1912) has several pages marked up, including mentions of prostitution, the Fabian Society, 'Children' and a passage noting that 'The young need particularly to be told truthfully and fully all we know three fundamental things... God... their duty towards their neighbours... and the third Sex'.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
BERKELEY (GEORGE)Autograph letter signed ('G:Cloyne'), as Bishop of Cloyne, to his friend Isaac Gervais, Dean of Tuam, at Lismore ('Good Mr Dean'), '...I am heartily sensible of your loss which yet admits of alleviation, not only from the common motives which have been repeated every day for upward of five thousand years, but also from your own peculiar knowledge of the world... I may add too from the peculiar times in which we live which seem to threaten still more wretched and unhappy times to come...', going on to reassure him that his cheerful nature will help him through hard times ('...Such is the hypochondriac melancholy complexion of us islanders, that we seem made of butter... but those elastic spirits which are your birthright cause the stoaks of fortune to rebound without leaving a trace...'), encouraging him to attend '...court and metropolis amidst a variety of faces and amusements...' and regretting he can not join him ('...The disorder I had this winter and my long retreat have disabled me for the road...'), two pages on a bifolium, integral free front address panel signed 'G:Coyne', docketed with date, dust-staining, creased at folds, some small holes, small old repair where damaged by seal not affecting text, 4to (300 x 85mm.), Cloyne, 24 February 1745/6Footnotes:'SUCH IS THE HYPOCHONDRIAC MELANCHOLY COMPLEXION OF US ISLANDERS, THAT WE SEEM MADE OF BUTTER': A rediscovered letter from George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne consoling his good friend Isaac Gervais on the death of his niece.Letters by this major philosopher are uncommon and rarely appear at auction. According to the great authority on Berkeley, Arthur Aston Luce, some sixteen letters (including this one) have survived from Berkeley's correspondence to Isaac Gervais, Dean of Tuam, which dates from 1738-1752, and were lent by The Rev. Henry Gervais, Archdeacon of Cashel to the editor of the 1784 edition of Joseph Stock's Memoirs who published only an extract from the text. Since then the letter, and the letter in the following lot, apparently disappeared from view and editors of subsequent collections have therefore had to rely on Stock's shortened version rather than the full text, which can now be read for the first time. The letter is also included in Alexander Campbell Fraser's Works of 1871, A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop Works (1956, Vol.VIII, no.231), and most recently Marc A. Hight's Correspondence (2013, no.337).Isaac Gervais (1680-1756) fled to Ireland from France on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, became Choral of Lismore in 1708, was later Prebendary there and became Dean of Tuam in 1743: '...a vivacious and every way pleasant clerical neighbour... who often visited Berkeley, and with whom he had much friendly correspondence in the remaining years of his life...' and someone who '...often enlivened the 'manse-house' at Cloyne by his wit and intercourse with the great world' (Campbell Fraser, The Works of George Berkeley, 1871, Vol.I, p.58, Vol.IV, p.260). A letter dated 6 February (Hight, no.331) indicates that Gervais' loss referred to here is the death of his niece. Berkeley writes again some two weeks later to reassure him that his naturally cheerful disposition and 'elastic spirits' will help him recover.Provenance: Private Collection, USA.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
Family Group: Memorial Plaque (2) (Arthur James Bartlett; William Bartlett) good very fine (2) £80-£100 --- Arthur James Bartlett was born in Battersea, London, and joined the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. He served during the Great War in H.M.S. Natal, and was killed when the Natal was sunk by an internal explosion that destroyed the armoured cruiser whilst at anchor in the Cromarty Firth on 30 December 1915. Out of her complement of over 700 men more than half (25 officers and 380 ratings) perished. The loss of life would have been even greater had not most of the off-duty watch been absent on shore leave at the time. Watkiss is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. During the Great War the Royal Navy lost 4 ships to internal explosions whilst lying in harbour, the other three being, H.M. Ships Bulwark, Princess Irene and Vanguard. At the time there was much speculation that these losses were due to sabotage by enemy agents. However, the more likely explanation is that they were the result of the deterioration of the stocks of high explosives carried on board. Natal’s upturned hull remained visible at low water for many years, and right up until the Second World War it was R.N. practice on entering and leaving Cromarty for every warship to sound “Still” and for officers and men to come to attention as they passed the wreck. Sold together with the recipient’s hand-made identity disc ‘A. J. Bartlett, Ord. Sn. J20895 C.E.’, fashioned from coin, with portrait of George V to obverse; and a H.M.S. Natal medallion presented to H.M.S. Natal by the People of Natal 1915. William Daniel Bartlett, brother of the above, attested for the South Lancashire Regiment, and served with the 2nd Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front. Captured and taken Prisoner of War, he died in captivity on 15 August 1917 and is buried in Hamburg Cemetery. Sold together with a South Lancashire Regiment lapel badge.
Laurence Biddle (British, 1888-1968), still life of pansies and other flowers in a Chinese vase on a table, signed and dated '29' lower right, oil on board, 26cm x 36.5cm, frame 40.5cm x 51cmFootnote: Laurence Biddle specialised in floral still lives, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and latterly in America. In the 1940s he moved to Montgomery, Wales.Condition report: Unexamined out of glazed frame. Frame and oil appear ok.
A Royal Worcester silver-mounted swing-handled dishcircular, painted with a still life of fruit by W. Bee, the gallery pierced Birmingham silver mounts by Sanders & Mackenzie dated 1928,20cm diameterCondition report: No signs if any cracks, chips or restoration but there are several scratches through the painted decoration to the centre - please see additional images.
A Royal Worcester cabinet platepost-warpainted with a central still life panel of fruit by H. Henry between broad acid-gilt decoration to the remainder of the plate, artist signed, printed factory mark in gold and with a gilt-lined foot rim, 27.2cm diameterCondition report: In a good condition with no cracks, chips, damages or any repairs. There are a couple of slightly darker marks to the gilding around the rim, but not particularly disfiguring - please see additional images. The painted panel remains in a good condition with no rubbing or scratches.
J*** van Geil A still life of flowers in an urn with fruit and a bird's nest on a stone ledgesigned 'J van Geil' (lower right)oil on canvas83 x 68.5cmCondition report: 102 x 87.5cm (framed)The painting is executed in oil on a fine weave canvas support which has been lined. The lining adhesion between the canvases is poor and lumps have formed in the background where the two are no longer attached. A horizontal line of loss and cracking is present in the bottom half of the painting with scattered losses. There are localised areas of blistering in the paint layer with lifting and flaking. In some areas the paint layer appears worn and abraded. Overpaint is present along the join and in the background. The varnish is yellowed and matte in areas.
Circle of Jakob Gillig (Dutch, 1636-1701) A still life of herring in a landscapeoil on panel25.5 x 31cmCondition report: Framed 49 x 55cmThe painting is executed in oil on a wooden panel formed from a single board with the woodgrain running horizontally. The panel is in a good condition. The unusual surface texture of the paint layers have been caused by the materials used by the artist and would have formed as the paint layer dried. The paint layer is in a stable condition overall. The varnish layer is uneven, having also contracted in areas as the paint layer dried.
ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1830, Portrait of a Young Girl, wearing a green dress, holding a basket, a coastal landscape beyond, oil on board, 6 x 5in; together with a small selection of other pictures by various hands including a still life depicting fruit on a ledge by a follower of George Clare; an oil on metal depicting two figures courting, with signature F. Leibel; and a watercolour in the manner of William Breakspeare depicting of a girl wearing a straw hat; six (6)
![JEAN JAMESON [?] (XX). A still life study of flowers in a vase. Signed lower right, oil on canvas, framed and glazed, 46 x 5](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/4475950a-a0dd-43db-829f-ae4700ca36b6/45f6d62f-334d-46dd-b037-ae5c0101cfad/468x382.jpg)
Loading...-
77168 item(s)/page