Pieter Symonsz Potter

Soldier in an Interior, Early 17th Century Dutch Oil

1600-1650

Philip Campbell Curtis American 1907 - 2000 Reflections Oil on board, signed and dated 1960 Image size: 12 ½ x 5 ½ inches Original frame

Attributted to Barthel Bruyn the Elder 1493–1555 Portrait of a Archduchess Margaret of Austria Oil on wood panel Image size: 10 inches (25.5 cm) Faux tortoiseshell frame Provenance North England Estate The Artist The date of Bartholomaeus (or Barthel) Bruyn's birth, 1493, can be deduced from a portrait medal by Friedrich Hagenauer which is dated 1539 and gives the artist's age as 46. The exact place of his birth is unknown, but was almost certainly in the region of the Lower Rhine. Bruyn entered the workshop of Jan Joest and assisted in painting the high altar of the Nikolaikirche, Kalkar, executed between 1505 and 1508. Also in Joest's atelier at this time was Joos van Cleve...

after HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 1497 – 1543 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM WARHAM Oil on canvas Image size: 38 x 35 inches (89 x 71 cm) Hand made period style frame The handling of the paint in...

English School, (circa 1600) Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke Oil on panel, oval Image size: 29¼ x 23⅞ inches Painted wooden frame Provenance: 176, Collection of Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick. The Trustees of the Lord Brooks’ Settlement, (removed from Warwick Castle). Sotheby’s, London, 22nd March 1968, lot 81. Painted onto wooden panel, this portrait shows a dark haired gentleman in profile sporting an open white shirt. On top of this garments is a richly detailed black cloak, decorated with gold thread and lined with a sumptuous crimson lining. With the red silk inside it’s all very expensive and would fall under sumptuary laws – so this is a nobleman of high degree. It’s melancholic air conforms to the contemporary popularity of this very human condition, evident in fashionable poetry and music of the period. In comparison to our own modern prejudices, melancholy was associated with creativity in this period. This portrait appeared in the earliest described list of pictures of Warwick castle dating to 1762. Compiled by collector and antiquary Sir William Musgrave ‘taken from the information of Lord & Lady Warwick’ (Add. MSS, 5726 fol. 3) is described; ‘8. Earl of Essex – an original by Zuccharo – seen in profile with black hair. Holding a black robe across his breast with his right hand.’ As tempting as it is to imagine that this is a portrait of Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl Essex, we might take this with a pinch of salt. Its identification with this romantic and fatal Elizabethan might well have been an attempt to add romance to Warwick Castle’s walls. It doesn’t correspond all that well with Essex’s portraits around 1600 after his return from Cadiz. Notably, this picture was presumably hung not too far away from the castle’s two portraits of Queen Elizabeth I. The first, and undoubtedly the best, being the exquisite coronation portrait that was sold by Lord Brooke in the late 1970s and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The second, described as being ‘a copy from the original at Ld Hydes’, has yet to resurface. The portrait eventually ended up being hung in the State Bedroom of Warwick Castle. Archival documents present one other interesting candidate. The Greville family’s earliest inventory of paintings, made in 1630 at their home Brooke House in Holborn, London, describes five portraits of identified figures. All five belonged to the courtier, politician and poet Sir Fulke Greville (1554-1628), 1st Baron Brooke, and were hung in the ‘Gallerie’ of Brooke House behind yellow curtains. One of them was described as being of ‘Lord of Pembrooke’, which is likely to have been William Herbert (1580-1630), 3rd Earl of Pembroke. William was the eldest son of Greville’s best friend’s sister Mary Sidney, and was brought up in the particularly literary and poetically orientated household which his mother had supported. Notably, the 3rd Earl was one of the figures that Shakespeare’s first folio was dedicated to in 1623. The melancholic air to the portrait corresponds to William’s own pretensions as a learned and poetic figure. The richness of the robe in the painting, sporting golden thread and a spotted black fabric, is indicative of wealth beyond that of a simple poet or actor. The portrait’s dating to around the year 1600 might have coincided with William’s father death and his own rise to the Pembroke Earldom. This period of his life too was imbued with personal sadness, as an illicit affair with a Mary Fitton had resulted in a pregnancy and eventual banishment by Elizabeth I to Wilton after a short spell in Fleet Prison. His illegitimate son died shortly after being born. Despite being a close follower of the Earl of Essex, William had side-stepped supporting Devereux in the fatal uprising against the Queen and eventually regained favour at the court of the next monarch James I. His linen shirt is edged with a delicate border of lace and his black cloak is lined on the inside with sumptuous scarlet and richly decorated on the outside with gold braid and a pattern of embroidered black spots. Despite the richness of his clothes, William Herbert has been presented in a dishevelled state of semi-undress, his shirt unlaced far down his chest with the ties lying limply over his hand, indicating that he is in a state of distracted detachment. It has been suggested that the fashion for melancholy was rooted in an increase in self-consciousness and introspective reflection during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In contemporary literature melancholy was said to be caused by a plenitude of the melancholy humor, one of the four vital humors, which were thought to regulate the functions of the body. An abundance of the melancholia humor was associated with a heightened creativity and intellectual ability and hence melancholy was linked to the notion of genius, as reflected in the work of the Oxford scholar Robert Burton, who in his work ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’, described the Malcontent as ‘of all others [the]… most witty, [who] causeth many times divine ravishment, and a kind of enthusiamus… which stirreth them up to be excellent Philosophers, Poets and Prophets.’ (R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, London, 1621 in R. Strong, ‘Elizabethan Malady: Melancholy in Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraits’, Apollo, LXXIX, 1964). Melancholy was viewed as a highly fashionable affliction under Elizabeth I, and her successor James I, and a dejected demeanour was adopted by wealthy young men, often presenting themselves as scholars or despondent lovers, as reflected in the portraiture and literature from this period. Although the sitter in this portrait is, as yet, unidentified, it seems probable that he was a nobleman with literary or artistic ambitions, following in the same vain as such famous figures as the aristocratic poet and dramatist, Edward de Vere...

This evocative 19th-century painting is the work of a follower of the Dutch Golden Age artist Jacob Toorenvliet, known for his finely rendered genre scenes. Titled Man Holding a Jug ...

18th Century Military portrait of a young officer in Napoleonic period military dress. The painting is not signed but the subject is Major Alexander Brown. The work is oil on canvas later mounted on board and presented in a fine 'Regence style' carved gilt frame. There are labels to the back referring to the subject, 'Major Brown of Trinity' and a framers trade label from Edinburgh. A magnificent and imposing portrait of a young military officer in the prime of his life. His red uniform adorned with fine buttons, fringed epaulettes and high gilt collar. His ruddy complexion offset by his stylish hair, a quiff and swept forward to the sides as was the fashion at the time. Sir David Wilkie RA (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was a Scottish painter, especially known for his portraits, including formal royal ones, and scenes from his travels to Europe and the Middle East. He painted successfully in a wide variety of genres, including historical scenes. His main base was in London, but he died and was buried at sea, off Gibraltar, returning from his first trip to the Middle East. He was sometimes known as the "people's painter". He was Principal Painter in Ordinary to King William IV and Queen Victoria. Apart from royal portraits, his best-known painting today is probably The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch of 1822 in Apsley House. Sir David Wilkie was actually admitted in 1799 (despite only being 14) through the influence of the Earl of Leven...

Work on canvas

Bernardino Detti (Pistoia, Italy, 1498 - 1572) Title: Face of Christ Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: without frame 41 x 32 cm - with frame 47 x 55.5 cm Antique box frame made of solid wood and walnut burl. Publications: unpublished The painting by Bernardino Detti (1498 - 1572) depicts the face of Jesus...