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拍品專文
The portrait and genre specialist Frank Markham Skipworth was born in Caistor, Lincolnshire. After rudimentary art training in Lincoln he entered the South Kensington Art Training Schools, where he studied under Sir Edward John Poynter from 1879 to 1882, a period that overlapped with James Jebusa Shannon’s tenure of study with Poynter at South Kensington. The two artists forged their friendship at this early stage in their careers, as witnessed by Skipworth’s 1883 portrait of Shannon in the guise of Fabien dei Franchi, a character created by Alexandre Dumas in his novella The Corsican Brothers (Museum of London). Skipworth went on to Paris, where he trained with William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury from 1883 to 1884 and, on returning to London, he took a studio in Chelsea not far from Shannon’s.
Skipworth’s 1885 portrait of Shannon confirms the resumption of their friendship and shows the younger artist as if caught in the process of painting, palette in one hand and his signature cigarette in the other. The two men remained close; Skipworth and his wife Alison (later a film star of some fame) were witnesses at Shannon’s marriage to Florence Mary Cartwright.
Skipworth’s 1885 portrait of Shannon confirms the resumption of their friendship and shows the younger artist as if caught in the process of painting, palette in one hand and his signature cigarette in the other. The two men remained close; Skipworth and his wife Alison (later a film star of some fame) were witnesses at Shannon’s marriage to Florence Mary Cartwright.