Sale 6583, Lot 44 Walter Crane (1845-1915) The Fate of Persephone (detail) Oil on canvas Estimate: £400,000-600,000 Read more PRESS INFORMATION Contact: Clare Roberts 020 7389 2117 VICTORIAN MASTERPIECE DISCOVERED IN SCHOOL LIBRARY Walter Crane's The Fate of Persephone leads Christie's British Art sales in London in June British Art Week at Christie's, 6-14 June 2002 Important British Art (evening sale) 12 June 2002 London - An extraordinary discovery made by an American school boy is one of the major highlights of Christie's London British Art sales series in June 2002. The Fate of Persephone by leading British painter Walter Crane (1845-1915) (estimate: £400,000-600,000) was rediscovered by ten year old Bingham Bryant in the library of his school in Old Lyme, Connecticut, where it had hung in obscurity above a book case for nearly 80 years. The little boy was so convinced that this ethereal and mythological scene was a long-forgotten masterpiece that he asked his father, an antique dealer, to come and investigate the painting with him, and in turn revealed the picture's extraordinary past. "It's been propped above the bookcase behind the librarian's desk forever, and I told my dad that he had to come and see it", Bingham Bryant says of the painting. Together Bingham and his father, Christopher, set out to discover how this forgotten painting had found its way to Old Lyme in Connecticut. Liverpool-born Crane painted the work in 1878 and showed it that year at the Grosvenor Gallery Summer Exhibition, where it was much admired by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Burne-Jones. By the early 20th century the picture had found its way to Germany and in 1923 was sold to Brian Hooker, best known for his translation of Cyrano de Bergerac. Hooker was a professor at Yale and had long harbored an ambition to build a house on nearby Fisher's Island, where he would hang his newly acquired painting. His dream was never fulfilled and in 1935 he decided to lend the painting to Old Lyme School, where his cousin happened to be involved as an architect. After studying Hooker's obituary, the father and son team discovered that Hooker's wife, too had died so they traced the paintings legal heirs, Hooker's octogenerian daughters. The Bryant's explained the whole story to the astonished sisters who had absolutely no idea of the paintings considerable value, and they agreed to sell. The painting depicts Pluto, lord of the underworld, and his two rearing black stallions, emerging from Hades to abduct Persephone, the goddess of spring, as she picks flowers from a blooming meadow. Crane was a prolific designer of wallpaper, textiles, stained glass and ceramics and made his name as an illustrator of children's books, including Grimm's Fairy Tales. He always stated that painting was his first love and in 1898 he became the principal of the Royal College of Art. His large allegorical works, of which the present painting is a prime example, are now rarely seen on the market. The Fate of Persephone will certainly challenge the world record for the artist, which is currently held by a painting entitled Bridge of Life, sold at Christie's in 1990 for £240,000. The Important British Art sale on the evening of the 12 June 2002 will also offer Albert Moore's (1841-1893) Apples (estimate: £100,000-150,000), painted in 1875. In his desire to paint pictures devoid of anecdote, action and meaning, where the emphasis was on the relationship between colour, line and form, he anticipated many of the pre-occupations of modernism. Two striking works on paper by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) are featured in the evening sale. Venus Astarte, dating from 1875 (estimate: £60,000-80,000), executed in pen and brown ink with wash, is a composition study for one of Rossetti's greatest late paintings Astarte Syriaca, completed in 1877. The study shows Venus (Astarte) in her Syrian form which Rossetti described in the accompanying sonnet as 'Betixt the sun and moon a mystery'. Rossetti's model for both the study and finished work was Jane Morris, wife of the poet William Morris and the inspiration for much of the artist's later work. The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary (estimate: £20,000-30,000) is a black and brown ink study for Rossetti's earliest known oil on canvas, Girlhood of the blessed Virgin which is housed in the collections of Tate Britain. The Bunting Collection of Works by Sir Alfred Munnings, P.R.A., to be sold immediately prior to the evening sale on 12 June 2002, is considered to be the last major collection of early works by Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) still in private hands and is expected to fetch up to £5 million. The collection belonged to the late Dr. Charles Bunting and this auction will be the first time that the entire group has ever been seen in public since it was displayed at the 1928 retrospective exhibition held at the Norwich Castle Museum. The twenty-one works in the collection depict many aspects of equestrian sporting life, from hunting to the races. Two of the works depict Ned Osborne, the artist's model and groom with eight of Sir Alfred Munnings's horses including Coming through the Gap, an oil on canvas painted in 1910, (estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000) and Crossing the Ford, an oil on canvas from the same year, (estimate: £500,000-800,000). On the Ringland Hills, Norfolk, (estimate: £300,000-500,000) dating from 1911, shows Osborne exercising three of the horses with the magnificent East Anglian countryside beyond. The collection was formed by the father of the late Dr. Charles Bunting between 1900 and 1915. Munnings enjoyed a close relationship with two generations of the Bunting family, living and working not far from their home in Norfolk. The highlight of the British Art on Paper sale on 6 June 2002 is Joseph Mallord William Turner's (1775-1851) Scarborough, a watercolour dating from 1818 (estimate: £300,000-500,000), with an exceptional provenance. The first owner of this work was the renowned and influential art critic, John Ruskin, who described Turner as 'the only perfect landscape painter whom the world has ever seen'. The painting depicts a view of Scarborough castle from the south and is painted from a low viewpoint on the shoreline, rendering the scene all the more dramatic. Other impressive north-east England views include Middleham Castle, Yorkshire by Paul Sandby, R.A. (1730-1809) (estimate: £25,000-35,000). Two further works by Sandby are also offered from the Estate of The Earl of Croome. The sale also includes a collection of four exceptional watercolours by Francis Towne (1739-1816). Three are Italian views, Sante Maria a Monte (estimate: £30,000-50,000), The Isle of Capri, Naples (estimate: £40,000-60,000) and Lake Alberao, Galleria di Sopra, Italy, executed in 1781 (estimate: £25,000-35,000), while the fourth work is a view of the Lake District (estimate: £20,000-30,000). The highlight of the 20th Century British Art sale to be held on 7 June 2002 is a rare and important early work by Walter Sickert, A.R.A (1860-1942), The Acting Manager (estimate: £80,000-120,000). Painted circa 1885-86, Sickert portrays his sitter, Miss Helen Couper-Black, Manager of the d'oyly Carte Theatre Group, collapsed on a sofa with exhaustion. The sale also includes Frying pan and eggs, 1952, by William Scott, R.A. (b.1913) (estimate: £50,000-80,000). This painting was exhibited in New York at the Martha Jackson Gallery, alongside works by Francis Bacon and Barbara Hepworth, in a joint exhibition in 1954. After the exhibition, this picture was acquired by Martha Jackson herself and it stayed in her private collection until her death. The sale also boasts three pictures by Leon Kossoff which come from a private American collection, Dalston Junction (estimate: £15,000-20,000), Sally No. 1 (estimate: £20,000-30,000) and John asleep (estimate: £40,000-60,000), ranging in date from 1975 to 1987. British Pictures 1500-1850, to be held on 11 June 2002, includes a Portrait of Sir Bouchier Wrey (estimate: £30,000-50,000), sporting a brown coat and red and gold waistcoat, by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743). A Portrait of Lady Wrey, by the most fashionable portraitist in London in his day, Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) is also offered (estimate: £25,000-35,000), depicting his glamorous sitter in a blue dress with lace cuffs, bedecked in pearls and jewels. George Romney's (1718-1792) Portrait of Mrs. James Fletcher (estimate: £20,000-30,000) is a good early example by the artist. John Atkinson Grimshaw's (1836-1893) Waiting, a painting of 1882 depicting a figure before a moonlit house (estimate: £70,000-100,000) is the highlight of the Victorian Pictures sale on 11 June 2002. Grimshaw excelled at the depiction of moonlight and by 1870 was successful enough to rent Knostrop Old Hall, near Temple Newsam in Leeds. The house and its neighbours thereafter featured in many of his paintings, either depicted in autumn, or as here in spring, with the daffodils appearing before the balustrade. The sale will also offer an oil by Edward Holliday entitled The Young Cricketer (estimate: £6,000-10,000) as well as a number of landscapes by the renowned Victorian artists, Benjamin William Leader and Richard Sidney Percy. Paintings & Watercolours from Longleat, to be held on Friday 14 June, includes a fascinating group of 112 unrecorded drawings, in the main executed by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and his brother in law Samuel Howitt (1756-1822), to be sold over 78 lots. The works were discovered at Longleat, where they formed part of the remarkable collection of Beriah Botfield. Rowlandson's watercolours conjure up bustling, vivid and amusing views of Regency England and the present works relate to a trip to the Isle of Wight and includes scenes of Southampton, Lymington,Winchester, Portsmouth, The Needles, Cowes in Newport. Rowlandson is best known as a talented and humorous observer of the manners and pastimes of his contemporaries (estimates range from £1,000 to £35,000). British Art Week, 6-14 June 2002 British Art on Paper, 6 June 20th Century British Art, 7 June British Pictures 1500-1850, 11 June Victorian Pictures, 11 June Important British Art, Evening Sale, 12 June The Bunting Collection of Works by Sir Alfred Munnings, P.R.A., Evening Sale, 12 June Paintings & Watercolours from Longleat, 14 June British Art Week sales will go on view on selected days from 26 May onwards. Lecture Lorian Peralta-Ramos, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Sir Alfred Munnings will give a lecture on The Bunting Collection at 6.30pm on Tuesday 11 June 2002 at Christie's, 8 King Street, London SW1. Back to top