13 JULY 02:00 PM BST | LIVE AUCTION 21954 British and European Art catalogue not released yet but rumours of some superb pre raphaelites coming up for sale

 

British & Irish Art results

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2013/british-irish-art-l13133.html?cmp=email_L13133_1113_4_AURexample2_event_button1#&i=0

came at last from ebay

Love Among the Ruins auction

it went for £14,845,875

http://www.artfixdaily.com/news_feed/2013/07/11/160-burne-jones-love-among-ruins-rises-to-22-million-in-record-setting

ove Among the Ruins @ Christie's

Important Victorian & British Impressionist Art

On the 11th July Christie's hold the most important auction of art in this area for probably a decade

http://www.christies.com/ecatalogues/victorian-british-impressionist-art-2013.aspx

Books, Manuscripts and Artwork from the Collection of Laurence W. Hodson (1864-1933)

http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com/auction.php?pageID=2&setPerPage=359&sale=35999

Loads of William Morris books

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Bower Garden to be offered at Sotheby's London British and Irish Art Sale

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Bower Garden to be offered at Sotheby's London British and Irish Art Sale Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Bower Garden. Est. £120,000-180,000. Photo: Sotheby's. LONDON.- The woman Dante Gabriel Rossetti married, and the extra-marital mistress, are the lady and the serving maid of The Bower Garden (est. £120,000-180,000), to be offered in Sotheby’s British and Irish Art sale on 13 November 2012. The watercolour, a highly charged and perhaps personally symbolic work, was painted by Rossetti in 1859. A lady – the Pre-Raphaelite muse and cutler’s daughter Elizabeth Siddal, who married the artist in 1860 – has been watering flowers within the walled garden of medieval romance; she stops to drink from a tall drinking vessel offered by a maid – Fanny Cornforth, a prostitute Rossetti probably met on the Strand in 1857. She remained Rossetti’s lover into his marriage with Siddal, and beyond the latter’s death from a laudanum overdose in 1862. The walled garden, medieval symbol of cloistered sensuality, is the stage for a highly ambiguous interaction – in which representations of servility and power are complicated by the disconnected gaze of the maid, who stares past her mistress. Simon Toll, British and Irish Art Specialist at Sotheby’s, commented: “The Bower Garden comes to market after more than a century in a private collection, acquired by the famous Pre-Raphaelite patron James Leathart in 1861, in whose family it has remained until now. A sensuous re-imagining of Early Renaissance art, with an autobiographically inflected subject, this is a beautiful example from Rossetti’s formative 1850s period.” Offered at Sotheby’s to coincide with Tate Britain’s exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, the painting celebrates the visual and sensory impact of the ‘stunner’ – Rossetti’s coinage for his working class muses who became, effectively, the first supermodels. The Bower Garden is one of Fanny’s earliest appearances in Rossetti’s art; she is celebrated as the Bocca Baciata (literally, ‘kissed mouth’) painted the same year as The Bower Garden and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Elizabeth Siddal is the famous face of Millais’ Ophelia (1852); by the time of this work however she was sitting only for Rossetti, as the jealously guarded instrument of his genius. 

More Information: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=58807#.UJ1Z52_ZaCA[/url]
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Study of Alexa Wilding

STUDY OF ALEXA WILDING FOR REGINA CORDIUM
signed with monogram and dated l.r. 1866
coloured chalks with pencil on grey paper
43 by 30cm., 17 by 12in.
ESTIMATE 30,000-50,000 GBP

Regina Cordium (Queen of Hearts) of 1866 depicts a flame-haired girl holding an orchid and standing at a parapet with an elaborate wallpaper behind of cherry-blossom growing on a trellis and pink roses in the foreground. Thepainting was commissioned by J. Hamilton Trist and is now in the collection of Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.

The model for Regina Cordium was Alexa Wilding, discovered by Rossetti in 1865 and who was to become one of his principle models in the decade that followed. Henry Treffry Dunn recalled how Rossetti had first seen Miss Wilding (whose first name was in fact Alice, although in due course she adopted the more exotic 'Alexa') when she was walking in the Strand and how he had besought her to allow him to paint and draw her. On the first occasion of asking she failed to appear at his studio as had been arranged, but, according to Dunn's account, by chance Rossetti saw
her again - apparently at the same spot where he had seen her before. On this second occasion, Rossetti succeeded in persuading Alexa that his intentions were honourable, so that in due course she began to serve as a model. An early portrait drawing of her, made in 1865, was offered in these rooms, 12 July 2007, lot 14. Within a year, Rossetti had embarked on the series of paintings of her, of which Venus Verticordia (Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth) Monna Vanna (Tate, London), Sibylla Palmifera (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) and La Ghirlandata (Guildhall Art Gallery, London) are among the most famous. During the second half of the 1860s and early 1870s, Rossetti relied upon Alexa Wilding to be available to him, finding her a patient and biddable sitter, and with a kind of beauty which was passive enough to allow her to adopt a wide variety of personifications and roles. Over a period of several years he paid her a small salary that she should model for him exclusively, perhaps because it was known that other artists - notably John Everett Millais - desired to paint her. 

Alexa Wilding's personality is hard to gauge, either from the accounts of people who knew her, or on the basis of her representation in Rossetti's paintings and drawings. Dunn described her as a woman whose 'lovely face [was] beautifully moulded in every feature, [and] full of a quiescent soft mystical repose that suited some of his [Rossetti's] compositions admirably, but without any variety of expression'. William Michael Rossetti, Dante Gabriel's brother, found her physiognomy more demonstrative, describing 'a head of fine and rather peculiar mould, eminently strong in contour and also capable of much varying expression'. Frederic George Stephens believed that 'in regard to her form and air, he [Rossetti] never adopted a more exquisite form of womanhood, per se' than 'the beautiful Miss Wilding', explaining that Rossetti's representations of Alexa were quite personal and dependent upon his own feelings for her: 'So many differently inspired versions did Rossetti give us of the beauty of Alice Wilding. Nevertheless, I dare say, not a little of her charm existed mostly in the passionate heart of the painter; yet I well remember that nothing he drew of her, diverse as the delineations were, seemed less than an exact likeness'.
Alexa made occasional visits to Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire, where Rossetti lived for a period from 1872, although she was only permitted to go there when Jane Morris was not in residence. In 1873 she attempted to gain her financial independence by setting up a boarding house, although in the mid-1870s she still received money from Rossetti. Gradually, however, she drifted out of his circle, and by the late 1870s was modelling for him only on rare occasions. Two children were born to her, in 1876 and 1877, although Alexa seems not to have been married to their
father. The second version of Rossetti's Sancta Lilias of 1879 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) was his last painting for which she served as a model. H.T. Dunn described how Alexa, after Rossetti's death in 1882, made an expedition to the churchyard at Birchington-on-Sea to lay a wreath upon his grave. She herself died in 1884, aged thirty-seven. 

Biographical information about Alexa Wilding, and a detailed account of her relationship with Rossetti, is given as Appendix 3, 'Monna Innominata: Alexa Wilding', in William E. Fredeman (ed.), The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. VI, 2006, pp.605-45. See also, Simon Toll, 'Dante Gabriel Rossetti's discovery of Alexa Wilding', British Art Journal, vol. VII, no. 2, pp. 87-91.

Joan of Arc - Sotheby's

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
1828-1882
JOAN OF ARC
signed with monogram and dated 1864 l.r.
watercolour and bodycolour over pencil
31 by 30cm., 12¼ by 12in.
ESTIMATE 250,000-350,000 GBP

Coming up for auction at Sothebys

(from Rossetti's notebook of 1879-1880)
From the mid 1860s Rossetti painted a series of depictions of passionate heroines that contrasted with the passive women that he had painted in earlier works. Thus he chose subjects of confrontational, powerful women whose
actions were ultimately dangerous; the woman who caused the fall of an entire city Helen of Troy of 1863 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg), a powerful sorceress Sibylla Palmifera of 1866 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), Adam's demon first wife Lady Lilith of 1867 (Delaware Art Museum) and the cause of all mankind's ills Pandora of 1871 (private collection). The subject of Joan of Arc was a character that Rossetti depicted as a sensual warrior-maid in a battlefield tent decorated with Fleur de Lys motifs. Her eyes are turned towards heaven and she is kissing the Sword of Deliverance as she makes her final prayers before battle. It was a counterfoil to the contemporary My Lady Greensleeves (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University) in which a woman is in the act of winding her pennant around a knight's helmet. That they were designed around the same time demonstrates Rossetti's love for subjects in which the themes of women, beauty and battle are interwoven. Helen of Troy fits into this category, with Cassandra of 1861 (British Museum) and the series of pictures illustrating the story of St George and Princess Sabra of 1861 and 1862 (Birmingham City Art Gallery). The cold shining armour and chainmail gives an added contrast to the warm flesh,
embroidered tunic and cascading hair.

The present picture has been described as a replica of an oil painting of the same subject entitled Joan of Arc Kissing the Sword of Deliverance painted in 1863 (Musée des Beaux Arts de Strasbourg) however it is more accurate to describe it as a variant as it differs considerably from the oil. Although Rossetti appears to have been pleased with the oil painting, a year after its completion he designed a new composition, reversing the pose and tilting her head Heavenward (Tate) a pose that he would return to many years later for one of the attendants in his famous Astarte
Syriaca of 1877 (Manchester City Art Gallery). Commissioned by his patron Ellen Heaton of Leeds for theconsiderable sum of £105, Rossetti considered the 1864 Joan of Arc; 'superior in expression and colour to the oil picture'. The present version, also dated 1864, is a smaller replica of the Heaton picture, commissioned in October
that year by Louisa, Lady Ashburton. Lady Ashburton was famous for her friendship with many of the greatest luminaries of the period including Landseer, Carlyle and Browning and as a liberal patron of the arts. She already owned a replica of Rossetti's The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise painted in 1863 and in 1864 during one of her visits to Rossetti's studio she asked him to paint Joan of Arc and a version of Venus Verticordia for her (the latter picture was sold to another collector). Joan of Arc was already hanging at Lady Ashburton's house by Christmas
of that year when it was seen and admired by Lady Ashburton's close friend Pauline, Lady Trevelyan. The Ashburton house Seaford Lodge had only recently been built at Seaford in Devon and was being decorated in the fashionable Aesthetic style with etchings by Whistler and tiles and stained glass supplied by Morris and Co. Louisa Ashburton was a woman of strong character and it is perhaps significant that she bought a painting of a willful and defiant heroine.

It is difficult to be certain about which of Rossetti's models Joan of Arc depicts. At this time there were a number of women that posed irregularly for Rossetti, including Aggie Manetti, Ellen Smith, Ada Vernon and a Mrs Knewstubb, the wife of his studio assistant. His brother William Michael Rossetti suggested that a German woman named Mrs Beyer posed for Joan of Arc but did not record which version she posed for and others stated that the model was Aggie Manetti, the Scotswoman that Rossetti painted several times. It is likely that the 1864 pictures depict an ideal of female beauty formed from an amalgamation of the features of several women. 

A notebook used by Rossetti in 1879 and 1880, contains a draft of an unpublished poem and in 1882, a few days before he died at Birchington-on-Sea Rossetti completed another painted replica of Joan of Arc (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) a weak and mannered painting that lacks the subtlety of the two pictures from 1864. This was the last picture that Rossetti finished, proving his enduring fascination for the subject.

Victorian & British Impressionist Art - Christie's sale -15 December 2011 London

Frank Cadogan Cowper
Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth
Price Realized
£469,250
($724,991)

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?intSaleID=23316#action=refine&intSaleID=23316&sid=d6d53162-1c3d-4d0f-9d5f-0afd0cf2996c

Victorian & British Impressionist Art - Thursday 15 December 2011

Victorian & British Impressionist Art - Thursday 15 December 2011

http://www.christies.com/eCatalogues/index.aspx?id=90F0452655784C1F8525778200313B8E

Muse pictures at auction

http://blog.ukauctioneers.com/2011/06/rossetti-pre-raphaelite-muse-pictures-at-auction/

Council's artwork fetches £74,000

A painting by the Victorian artist John Everett Millais has been sold by Bolton Council for £74,400.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14151797

Arts & Crafts, including the Aesthetic Movement - Lot 357

http://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/Lot/?Sale=DA220611&Lot=357

A very nice auction from Woolley and Wallis. Some lovely pottery and some tiles, including by de Morgan, I would personally love.

'La Castagnetta' an oil on canvas by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), framed image 41 x 38cm.

Provenance
Bought from the artist by J Hamilton Trist in 1866 for £52. 10s
His sale, Christie's, London 9th April 1892, lot 106
Bought by his son H.H. Trist
thence by descent to Mrs H.H. Trist
Her sale, Christie's London 23rd April 1937, lot 91
G F Simms by 1955
Jerrold N. Moore by 1971
Newcastle, The Stone Gallery
Sotheby's 11th June 1993 lot 103a

Literature
H C Marillier Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of his Art and Life, 1899 page 143 catalogue number 180
Virginia Surtees The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), A Catalogue Raisonne, 1971, page 93 catalogue number 166.

Rossetti painting of Oxford's Jane Morris to be sold

A Pre-Raphaelite painting never previously sold is coming to auction next month.

The Head of Proserpine is an 1872 portrait of Oxford-born Jane Morris by her lover Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

It was owned by the artist's descendent and described by Christie's as an "iconic late oil painting".

Christie's Victorian and Impressionist sale on 15 June also includes a drawing of Jane by Rossetti.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-13603509

Bonhams to Sell Sleep-Walking Masterpiece by Pre-Raphaelite Artist Sir John Everett Millais

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=47692

Incredible Family Pre-Raphaelite Collection Comes To The Market For The First Time (2006)

http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&Screen=Headlinedetails&iheadlineno=2170

Rare Needlework Book Cover from the Book of Beauty, 1896

A pre-Raphaelite needlework book cover designed for The Book of Beauty: A Collection of Beautiful Portraits with Literary, Artistic and Musical Contributions by Men and Women of the Day, edited by Mrs F Harcourt Williamson and published by Hutchinson & Co in 1896.

Only 300 copies of the book, which includes contributions by Rudyard Kipling, Lord Curzon and Sir john millais, were produced, and this is the only known embroidered cover. The National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum has a copy of the book, but without a cover like this.

http://www.artdaily.org/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=39282&b=john%20millais