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PRESS INFORMATION
Press Release 1 | Press Release 2 | Press Release 3
Contact:
Clare Roberts
Tel: +44(0)20 7389 2964
GREAT BRITISH ART AT CHRISTIE'S IN NOVEMBER
British Art Week includes Rossetti Masterpiece
British Art Week at Christie's
21-30 November 2001
London - Christie's announce the sale of arguably the most famous of all Pre-Raphaelite images, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's (1828-1882) Beata Beatrix (estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000), a major highlight of the evening sale of Important British and Irish Art including Works of Art from the De Morgan Foundation on Wednesday 28 November. This pastel work is signed and dated 1872 and is a later version of the oil painting of the same title, circa 1864-70, now hanging in the permanent collection of Tate Britain.
The immediate appeal of the subject led to Rossetti being asked to execute a number of versions in different media but the present work is the only one he ever executed in pastel. The artist regarded the picture as a memorial to his wife Elizabeth Siddal who died tragically young of a laudanum overdose in 1862. The image is Rossetti's most intensely visionary and symbolist work and marked a new direction in his painting.
The subject of Beata Beatrix comes from Dante's Vita Nuova, which describes Beatrice in a trance while overlooking Florence, when she is transported mystically from Earth to Heaven. The sundial points to the hour of Beatrice's death. The red dove (a messenger of both Love and Death) is shown dropping a poppy into Beatrice's hands - the poppy is symbolic of sleep and death and may also refer to the opium which caused Siddal's death.
A stunning oil on canvas entitled The Hammock by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000), is a further major highlight of the evening sale, showing the beautiful Irish divorcée Kathleen Newton, Tissot's muse and the great love of his life, sitting in a hammock. Their happiness and quiet domesticity inspired some of his greatest works including the present painting. Set in the garden of their house in Grove End Road, St John's Wood, which later was owned by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, the pond and pergola became motifs seen in both artist's works. Along with Manet and Whistler, Tissot was among the first artists interested in Japonisme and this is tangible in the picture to be offered.
An evocation of ancient Rome, Water Pets (estimate: £250,000-350,000), by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was painted on an impressive scale when the artist was at the height of his career and it proved to be a significant landmark in his oeuvre. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy after Water Pets was exhibited there in 1875. The painting depicts a classical beauty lying on a tiled floor surveying brightly coloured fish in an ornamental pond.
Four landscape drawings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (1727-1788) demonstrate the artist's unique drawing technique; Figures beside cottages with a village church beyond; Cattle in a rocky wooded landscape; A wooded landscape with figures and a cottage beside a pool and A rocky wooded landscape with a figure and a dog on a track above a pool (estimate: £250,000-350,000 for the group of four). These four drawings are in remarkable condition and are reunited again for this sale having formerly all belonged in the collection of Francis, 1st Baron Northbrook. In the 1770s Gainsborough began to experiment with technique, greatly enhancing the pictorial quality of his works on paper, with the 1772 Royal Academy exhibition catalogue describing his exhibited drawings as 'in imitation of oil painting'. He wrote in great depth about how he would dip his paper in skimmed milk to adhere the white chalk to it, building up layers of chalk, colour and gum, giving the appearance that the chalk on the paper was suspended in space.
The Important British and Irish Art evening sale also boasts a magnificent painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. of John Phillip Kemble (1757-1823) as Rolla in Sheridan's Pizarro (estimate: £200,000-300,000). John Phillip Kemble was a famous figure in the theatrical circle of Georgian London, both as a celebrated actor and theatre manager. He was painted by many of the great portraitists of his day, and by Sir Thomas Lawrence at least eight times. Pizarro was a popular patriotic melodrama first performed in 1799.
At the Piano painted in 1957 by the visionary English painter Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959) (estimate: £700 -1,000,000), Gwen John's (1876-1939) La Concierge, an oil on canvas painted in 1922-24 (estimate: £70,000-100,000), which demonstrates the artist's typical introspective subject matter, and People Talking, painted by the 20th century artist L.S.Lowry, R.A., in 1930, (estimate £200,000-300,000) are all notable lots in the evening sale.
Eleven important works from The De Morgan Foundation Collection are a major highlight of the Important British Art sale. The selection includes nine works by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, the largest group by the artist ever to be seen at auction.
British Art on Paper
Wednesday, 21 November
This sale boasts two watercolours works by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), View of Bridgnorth, on the River Severn, Shropshire (estimate: £30,000-50,000) and Interior of Durham Cathedral (estimate: £20,000-30,000). In addition to the Important British Art sale, further works by Thomas Gainsborough and Myles Birket Foster and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema are also to be offered. Gainsborough's Figures on a lake, a herdsman and cattle on the shore with a building beyond, black and white chalk with a blue and pink wash (estimate: £20,000-30,000), Birket Foster's watercolour, Picking Blackberries (estimate: £35,000-45,000) and Alma-Tadema's The letter from the absent one, dated 1971 (estimate: £50,000-70,000), and an important drawing of the famous society beauty Elizabeth Duchess of Devonshire (1758-1824) (estimate: £40,000-60,000) are all further highlights in the British Art on Paper sale.
20th Century British Art
Friday, 23 November
Christie's sale of 20th Century British Art is led by a superb private collection of six oil paintings by L. S. Lowry. The highlight is a stunning view of Paddington Station (estimate: £150,000-250,000), a highly unusual work as the artist rarely depicted London landmarks or street scenes in the Capital. Paddington Station, painted in 1962, demonstrates his continual fascination with crowds of people, transferring the characters seen in his canvases of his home in the North West of England, to one of London's busiest railway stations. Further notable lots in the collection include a House by the sea, (estimate: £80,000-120,000), painted in 1961, depicts an unfeasibly tall house with formal gardens. Lowry himself appears in a Group of people with the Artist, 1961 (estimate: £50,000-80,000) as a tall grey-haired figure blending in with the crowd - a rare glimpse of the artist in his work. The sale also includes Brown, Black and White by William Scott, R.A. (1913-1989), an oil on canvas painted in 1960 (estimate: £60,000-100,000) and Dame Barbara Hepworth's (1903-1975) Two Forms in Echelon, a carved slate sculpture executed in 1963 (estimate: £30,000-50,000).
British Pictures 1500-1850 and Victorian Pictures
Friday 30 November
The British Pictures 1500-1850 section includes an important Portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Thomas Phillips, R.A. (estimate: £40,000-60,000), for which the sitter - with typical self-depreciation - praised Phillips for having infused so much life into his 'crumbly old face'. Other portraits include works by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, while there is also a strong group of early 19th Century landscapes. The latter includes Capstern at Work, drawing up fishing boats by William Collins, R.A. (estimate: £15,000-20,000) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 and is an important precursor to the work of Richard Parkes Bonington.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Portrait of Clothilde Onslow Ford (estimate: £40,000-60,000), never before offered for sale, leads the Victorian Pictures section of the sale. Clothilde was the daughter of the sculptor Edward Onslow Ford and is depicted leaning on a massive Byzantine-style grand piano which was the centrepiece of many musical soirées at the artist's studio house in St John's Wood. The piano lid was inscribed by those who had played it, including Clara Schumnn, Anton Rubinstein and Camille Saint-Saens. The Charity Boy's Debut by James Collison is a further notable work (estimate: £50,000-70,000) and caused Rosetti to remark 'Collison is a stunner' (according to Holman Hunt) when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847.
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Images available on request
Lectures at 6.30pm at Christie's, 8 King Street, SW1:
The Golden Age of Watercolours: The Hickman Bacon Collection
20 November 2001 by Ian Dejardin, Curator, Dulwich Picture Gallery
Spencer Stanhope & Works from the de Morgan Foundation
27 November 2001 by Dr. Elizabeth Prettejohn, Author of The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites
British Art Week Sales also include Sporting Art on 5 December 2001.
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