Beautiful Galleries and Exceptional Art Works
3 – 10 December
Newly discovered Dürer drawing revealed at London Art Week Winter
40 selling exhibitions and auctions across the West End
Third LAW Symposium: the impact of Jewish art dealers on Europe’s art market
Charles Beddington Ltd
MICHEL-MARTIN DROLLING (Paris 1786-1851)
The Park of the Villa Borghese, Rome, from the Villa Medici
Oil on paper laid on canvas – 10 ½ x 29 ⅛ in. (26.5 x 74 cm.)
This sketch is evidently related to the painting, also on paper laid down, once in the collection of Joanny Benoît Peytel (1844-1924), sold at Christie’s, Paris, 22 June 2006 (lot 67) and now in the Rijksmuseum.- Square format (19 ¼ x 24 ¼ in., 48.5 x 61.3 cm.)
Drolling won the Prix de Rome in 1810 and went to Rome in the next year.
The aqueduct was destroyed in 1843.
Bringing unknown or forgotten works and artists to public light is a significant aspect of the aims of a scholarly art dealer. Among the important discoveries and major artistic reassessments on show at London Art Week Winter, 3-10 December 2021, is an extremely rare and previously unpublished pen and black ink drawing by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
This Winter’s London Art Week celebrates 40 exciting in-gallery and auction house exhibitions featuring works of art from ancient to modern with spectacular highlight works, and is accompanied by an enlightening programme of live and online talks, tours, and the third LAW Symposium. LAW Digital exhibits up to 10 works online from every participant, plus editorials and videos. Past talks can be viewed here too. www.londonartweek.co.uk
Galerie Chenel
Exhib: INTERIEUR : Art Déco / Art Classique (Digital Only)
Torso Of Dionysus
Roman, 1st-2nd century ad
Marble
Small restorations – Height: 94 cm. Width: 40 cm. Depth: 28 cm.
PROVENANCE:
Formerly in the collection of Baron Léon de Somzée (1837-1901), from at least 1897.
Sold by J. Fievez, collections de Somzée 24 May 1904, Brussels, lot no. 23.
Sold by J. Fievez, collection de Mrs. De Somzée 27-29 may 1907, Brussels, lot no. 278.
Then in a Parisian private collection at 102 rue de la tour, 16th arrondissement, Paris.
Visit 40 museum-quality selling exhibitions by London’s leading fine art galleries and auction houses. Special exhibitions cover diverse subjects spanning millennia:
● Dürer and his time at Agnews features the newly-discovered drawing as centrepiece and includes the only copper engraving plate by Dürer known to exist, on loan from a German museum
● Huguenot Refugee Art & Culture (at Koopman Rare Art)
● Bloomsbury Life (at Philip Mould & Company)
● Alberto Martini: Masks & Shadows at the Laocoon Gallery brings this illustrator and artist of late Italian decadentismo and symbolism, as well as the precursor of surrealism, back to life. (Works by Martini are also offered by Galleria Carlo Virgilio & C.)
● Ethel Gabain (1883-1950), one of the few artists to support themselves from the sale of lithographs in the early 20th century (at Abbott & Holder)
Abbott & Holder
ETHEL GABAIN (18813-1950), Portrait of a Woman – Lithographs 1908-1932 from the Artist’s Estate (to 23 December)
Ethel Gabain (1883 – 1950)
Carmen sitting on the bath. c.1935
Oil on canvas. – 55.9 × 40.6 cm. (22 ⅛ × 15 ⅞ in.)
Estate stamped recto and verso.
69.8 x 55.9 cm. (27 1/2 x 22 1/8 in.) £9,000
New exhibitors joining London Art Week Winter include Koopman Rare Art, London’s preeminent dealer in antique silver, gold boxes and objets de vertu (at their new galleries in Dover Street, Mayfair) and Patrick Bourne & Co, with a particular interest and expertise in British Art from the 18th century to the mid-20th century (St. James’s Place).
Kallos Gallery
Exhib: Warriors & Warfare in the Ancient World
An Attic black-figure hydria, attributed to the Leagros Group
Circa 525-500 BC
Pottery
Height: 39 cm
EXHIBITIONS
This Winter, exhibitions span the typically broad variety on offer at London Art Week galleries. They include depictions of ancient warriors and warfare at Kallos Gallery and classical highlights at Galerie Chenel, while Sam Fogg focuses on Medieval saints and Georg Laue, Kunstkammer Ltd on princely objects. Stephen Ongpin Fine Art will launch its new gallery in a townhouse in Mayfair with the exhibition From Giorgione to Picasso: Masterworks of Six Centuries; Colnaghi explores the significance of Naples as an art city; and Regency Silver is the theme at Koopman Rare Art. Elliott Fine Art celebrates the Belle Époque; a career encompassing show of Walter Sickert is at Piano Nobile; 20th century drawings and watercolours depicting the human figure can be viewed at Patrick Bourne & Co; a critically acclaimed collection of 70 works by one of the most eccentric illustrators, Alberto Martini, is shown at Laocoon Gallery; and Scottish art is showcased at The Fine Art Society.
The Fine Art Society
Exhib: Scotland – bringing Scotland to London with a presentation of Scottish pictures from across the nineteenth and twentieth century, including significant works by Alan Ramsay, Sir James Guthrie, Harrington Mann, Ian Fleming, and Joan Eardley. (to 22 December)
Robert Herdman RSA RSW (1829-1888)
Head of a girl – 1876
Oil on board – 21.6 × 21.6 cm. (8 ½ × 8 ½ in.)
Monogrammed and dated 1876
29.2 x 29.2 cm. (11 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.)
The third London Art Week Symposium returns this Winter from 6-9 December 2021. In collaboration with and organised by the Jewish Country Houses project, “Jewish Dealers and the European Art Market c.1850-1930” will be held online over three days (6th, 7th and 9th December) from 6pm to 7.15pm (GMT). Panellists from the US, UK and Europe will discuss around Charles Dellheim’s latest book “Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern”; present Jean Strouse’s forthcoming publication on the Wertheimer family and particularly their relationship with portrait artist, John Singer Sargent; and hold a round table discussion about the heritage of Jewish art dealerships.
*All webinars are free but registering is essential.
On Friday 10 December, a number of London Art Week participants will open their doors late in a collaboration with the West End Gallery HOP! which includes many modern and contemporary art dealers.
HIGHLIGHTS
Raccanello Leprince
Exhib: Italian Ceramics & Works of Art
APOLLO AND MARSYAS
From the model by Gaspero Bini, after Giovanni Battista Foggini
So-called masso bastardo, hard paste porcelain covered in a tin-glaze
Doccia porcelain factory, Florence, c. 1795
H. 21 cm
Significant highlight works include:
● The Shield of Achilles in silver-gilt by Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, a magnificent presentation piece nearly 1m in diameter made for the King of Hanover in 1823 (Koopman Rare Art)
● a newly discovered oil sketch, a view of The Villa Borghese, Rome by Michel-Martin Drolling (1786-1851) for a painting now in the Rijksmuseum (with Charles Beddington Ltd)
● a luminous, small-scale landscape by John Linnell (1792-1882) painted in the late 1820s (with Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd)
● a terracotta Head of an Angel by Antonio Giorgetti (doc. Rome 1657-1669), one of the great sculptors of the Roman Baroque, based on his commissioned sculpture for Ponte Sant’Angelo (1668-69), a project overseen by Bernini for Pope Clement IX
● an Antarctic view painted by Dr Edward Wilson (1872-1912) during the doomed Scott expedition to the South Pole of 1910-12 (with Guy Peppiatt Fine Art).
Trinity Fine Art
Old Master Paintings and Sculpture from the 15th-19th Century
Antonio Giorgetti (Documented in Rome c. 1657 – 1669)
Head of an Angel c. 1663
Terracotta – 40 cm. (15 ¾ in.)
Dürer and his time at Agnews centres on a recently made, highly important rediscovery of an unpublished pen and black ink drawing circa 1500 by Albrecht Dürer, The Virgin and Child. Agnews’ exhibition looks at how this Renaissance artist was one of the pioneers of crafting a self-fashioned identity, or brand, and also includes the only copper engraving plate by Dürer known to exist, on loan from Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, Germany.
*The exhibition, staged for London Art Week, will continue until Sunday 12th December.
Didier Aaron
Exhib: Paintings and Drawings 1725-1900
François de Troy (1645-1730)
Signing of a contract
Toulouse – Paris 1725
Oil on canvas
54.5 × 66 cm. (21 ½ × 25 ⅞ in.)
Peint à Paris par François de Troy âgé de 80 ans en 1725
At Didier Aaron is this rare genre scene by portraitist François de Troy (1645-1730). This work, combining the artist’s characteristic attention to details of clothing and household objects with a light, sketched treatment of the interior setting, was recently identified in a photograph of George Hoentschel’s house and studio on Boulevard Flandrin in Paris. It featured in the 2013 exhibition Salvaging the Past at the Bard Graduate Centre, New York. Hoentschel was one of the most renowned interior decorators in Paris circa 1900. His impressive collection of paintings, boiseries, tapestries, and sculpture, ranging from the middle ages to the late 18th century, was in large part acquired by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1906 and was later donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it still is today.
At Bowman Gallery The Winter Exhibition: Sculpture from 1870 to the present day reveals contrasting highlights such as an elegant white marble by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Nu Se Devoilant, conceived and carved circa 1900 (shown left), and a figurative work by the contemporary Dutch artist Hanneke Beaumont titled Cast Iron 113 (shown right). The show also includes works by renowned British stone sculptor Emily Young (b. 1951).
Bowman Sculpture Ltd
Exhib: The Winter Exhibition: Sculpture from 1870 to the present day
Hanneke Beaumont (Contemporary)
Cast Iron 113
Netherlands – Contemporary
Cast Iron – 25.5 cm. (10 ⅛ in.)
Signed with the monogram HB
A recently discovered work by French artist Michel-Martin Drolling (1786-1851), who won the Prix de Rome in 1810, is displayed at Charles Beddington Ltd showing a view of The Park of the Villa Borghese, Rome, from the Villa Medici (shown above). This sketch is evidently related to the painting once in the collection of Joanny Benoit Peytel (1844-1924) which sold at Christie’s in 2006 and is now in the Rijksmuseum.
Surrealist André Breton wrote in his ‘L’Art magique’ of 1957 that he counts François de Nomé (1593-c. 1640), the painter from Lorraine sometimes known as Monsù Desiderio, among the “geniuses”. Breton admired the painter’s “enigmatic aspect”. The paintings of François de Nomé, who was active in Rome and Naples in the first decades of the seventeenth century, were very soon considered “revolutionary” with respect to the art of his contemporaries. The example presented by Galerie Canesso for LAW Digital depicts Agrippina departing for Rome with the ashes of Germanicus, c. 1620, a large oil on canvas laid down on wood panel.
Koopman Rare Art joins LAW this Winter from their new gallery in Dover Street. They present an exhibition focused on the work of Huguenot silver and goldsmiths who settled across Europe from France in the 17th and 18th centuries fleeing religious persecution. They brought with them a new language and sensibility of design. The exhibition coincides with a new book published by the Victoria & Albert Museum on the subject, ‘Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art & Culture’ by the highly regarded art historian Dr. Tessa Murdoch. Centrepiece of the show is The Shield of Achilles, a magnificent example of work in silver-gilt with the maker’s mark of Philip Rundell for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, goldsmiths to the Prince Regent. This highly important shield was made for The King of Hanover in 1823.
Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827)
Gilding the Lily London
London – c. 1800-10
Pen and ink over pencil with watercolour washes
362 × 298 mm. (14 ¼ × 11 ¾ in.)
Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd has a clutch of famous 18th century British artists in their latest discoveries, drawings by Angelika Kauffman, Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Rowlandson and JMW Turner. Also of great note is a luminous, small-scale landscape by John Linnell (1792-1882). Painted in the late 1820s, Shepherds is a beautifully preserved oil and a miniature masterpiece. The work demonstrates Linnell’s investment in naturalism, whilst the fiery evening sky suggests his awareness of his friend Samuel Palmer’s visionary works.
From the farthest end of the world comes this next highlight work, offered by Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, a signed watercolour by Edward Adrian Wilson (1872-1912) titled Mt Erebus, Antarctica. Dr Edward Wilson is regarded as one of the most prominent figures of early Antarctic exploration. He was selected for the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-4) led by Captain Robert Scott (1868-1912) as Assistant Surgeon and Vertebrate Zoologist and returned as part of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, 1910-12, as Chief of the Scientific Staff. On both occasions he was selected for the team to reach the South Pole. In 1902 he, Scott and Shackleton failed to reach the pole and in January 1912 he was one of five to reach the pole, but all perished on the return. Wilson’s lasting legacy is the collection of drawings and watercolours that he made during his two Antarctic expeditions. Wilson produced numerous pencil sketches and more detailed watercolours of Mt Erebus, many of which are in the collection of the Scott Polar Research Institute.
Sladmore Gallery
Into the Wild: A selection of Animal Sculpture (3-23 Dec)
Kensuke Fujiyoshi (b.1966)
Polar Bear on an Iceberg, box
Japan – 2021
Hand-painted, glazed porcelain
21 × 10 × 8 cm. (8 ¼ × 3 ⅞ × 3 ⅓ in.)
Signed by the artist – £5,250
Sladmore Gallery St. James’s present Into the Wild: A Selection of Animal Sculpture. Artists represented include Antoine-Louis Barye, who began a fashion in the 19th century of depicting wild animals in bronze, Rembrandt Bugatti, and contemporary British sculptors Sophie Dickens and Mark Coreth. Among notable examples on offer is this impressive 1940 bronze Drill Baboon by Charles Delhommeau (1883-1970) which stands nearly half a metre tall.
*This exhibition continues until 23 December.
Abbott & Holder is showcasing works by Ethel Gabain (1883-1950). Portrait of a Woman, Lithographs 1908-1932 (*Above) from the Artist’s Estate (which continues until 23 December) takes a closer look at one of the few artists, man or woman, able to support themselves from the sale of lithographs in the early 20th century. Her draughtsmanship and technical expertise were built on sound training at the Slade, the Central School and years practising in Paris. In 1911 she was taken up by Harold Wright at P&D Colnaghi, the great print publisher of the age. What made her success remarkable was not simply that she made her way in an art world dominated by men, but her prints were almost exclusively concerned with ‘woman-hood’.
Karen Taylor Fine Art
Exhib: A Winter Miscellany: Works on Paper 2021 (Digital Only)
William James Müller (Bristol 1812-1845 Bristol)
The slave market, Cairo. c. 1839
Oil on canvas – 61 × 101 cm. (24 ⅛ × 39 ¾ in.)
Signed l.r.:WMuller
80 x 120 cm. (31 1/2 x 47 1/4 in.)
A rare early European’s view of Cairo.
William James Müller (1812-1845), the most important artist of the Bristol School, arrived in Egypt by steamer in November 1838. He was one of the first established European artists to visit Egypt and was there at the same time as David Roberts. Müller was haunted by the city’s slave market, which he recorded and sketched on many occasions, in some detail, providing a unique depiction of an European’s reaction to the ‘revolting’ place. This historical and important work forms part of the LAW Digital exhibition by Karen Taylor Fine Art.
For London Art Week, Tomasso is showing a circa 1790 white marble Portrait Bust of Prince Francis Xavier of Saxony (1730-1806) by Christopher Hewetson (c. 1737-1798), illustrated below centre. The Irish sculptor was amongst the most renowned and respected portrait sculptors in late eighteenth-century Rome. After studying in his native Kilkenny and later Dublin, Hewetson travelled to the Eternal City in 1765, and there remained for the rest of his career. He died in Naples in 1798.
Tomasso
A Selection of British Art 1600-1850
Joseph Gott (1785-1860)
Greyhound with Puppies c.1825
Terracotta
23 × 44 × 18 cm. (9 ⅛ × 17 ⅜ × 7 ⅛ in.)
This glorious terracotta Head of an Angel offered by Trinity Fine Art, (Above) shown below left, is by Antonio Giorgetti, documented in Rome from 1657-1669, one of the great sculptors of the Roman Baroque. It is taken from his Angel with the Sponge commissioned for Ponte Sant’Angelo (1668-69), a project overseen by Bernini for Pope Clement IX. This sculpture was made for the collectors’ market: during the latter years of the 17th century, there was an increased desire to collect terracottas, especially those by Algardi, from which the present head takes inspiration.
Among the Italian Ceramics & Works of Art to be shown by Raccanello Leprince is a circa 1795 masso bastardo (*Above) (hard-paste porcelain with a tin glaze) rendering of Apollo and Marsyas, after a bronze by the great sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini, and modelled for the Doccia factory in Florence by Gaspero Bini
Daniel Katz Gallery
Exhib: Belle Époque and Beyond (until 17 Dec)
François-Marie Poncet (1736-1797)
Portrait of a lady in profile Lyon
Marseille – 1775
Terracotta relief
73 × 59 cm. (28 ¾ × 23 ¼ in.)
Signed: poncet f 1775
London Art Week Winter 2021 runs from 3 to 10 December and takes place online and in galleries and auction houses.
LONDON ART WEEK WINTER 2021
London, UK
