Edward Burne Jones Most Expensive Art Victorian Artist Dreamer
Christie's (25/20/12/five% buyer'south premium) December 11 auction of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist art opened with a 26-lot drove of works consigned past the descendants of Burne-Jones.
The offering coincided with the retrospective currently showing at Tate Britain, the first major exhibition of the artist's piece of work in London for over four decades.
Known for his depictions of scenes from Arthurian legend and medieval romance, the Birmingham-built-in painter briefly acted as an apprentice to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, before forming part of a so-chosen '2nd moving ridge' of Pre-Raphaelites.
Deeply unfashionable during much of the 20th century, Burne-Jones suffered on the secondary market (like virtually of the Pre-Raphaelites) until his reputation was revived past the 1998 retrospective Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer, which travelled from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the UK and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Possibly the nigh stunning example of Burne-Jones' renaissance came in 2013, when Christie'due south sold his intensely romantic watercolour composition Love amid the Ruins for a multi-gauge £13.2m in London. This set a major tape for the artist but was also a record sum for any British work on paper.
In a slice written for Christie's website, Alison Smith, curator of the current Burne-Jones exhibition at Tate Britain, said the artist's surge in popularity can be seen in light of the success of fantasy dramas such equally The Lord of the Rings and Games of Thrones. "They are pure Burne-Jones," she added.
Market need for the Pre-Raphaelite painter has caused a greater number of works to sally from the woodwork, said Harriet Drummond, director of British drawings and watercolours at Christie's.
"The good thing about a masterpiece such every bit Beloved amongst the Ruins doing so well is that it encourages owners of other start-rate pieces to bring those to auction, too. And that's certainly what we've been finding. Now is a time of huge opportunity if you're a Burne-Jones collector," she said.
Hail the three Marys
The Three Marys past Edward Burne-Jones – £210,000 at Sotheby's.
Besides as the collection from the artist's descendants at Christie'southward, two farther works at Sotheby's (25/20/12.ix% buyer's premium) were included in its equivalent auction on December 13. Together, they offered 28 works on paper, all of which got away to total £759,000.
Sotheby's sold the most expensive, a religious depiction called The Three Marys, described in the catalogue note as a 'fascinating triumvirate of Pre-Raphaelite wives and muses'.
Central to the 3ft 4in x 20in (1.03m x 50cm) watercolour with bodycolour and gum Arabic was the figure of Maria of Nazareth, modelled on the nigh famous 'stunner', Elizabeth Siddal.
The limerick was probably originally painted as a cartoon for one of the stained-glass panels for St Michael's and All Angels in Lyndhurst, Hampshire.
It had belonged to Dr Charles Bland Radcliffe, a friend of the Burne-Joneses who saved the artist's life on one occasion when he almost choked later on being taken unwell on Christmas Eve.
Following Radcliffe's decease in 1889 the watercolour passed to his wife who exhibited information technology at Burne-Jones' memorial exhibition at the New Gallery in 1898. On loan to Tate United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland from a private collection between 2001-12, information technology was purchased by the vendor from The Fine art Society in London. In its original frame designed by celebrated Arts & Crafts architect Philip Webb (1831- 1915), information technology tipped over peak estimate to sell for £210,000.
The financial star of the group at Christie'due south was a fourteen x 10in (36 x 25cm) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour depicting the classical mythical figure of Danaë in a brazen tower.
Equally the fable goes, Acrisius, King of Argos, was warned by an oracle that the son of his daughter Danaë would slay him. He therefore close her up in a brazen tower, but Zeus descended on her in a shower of golden and she bore a son, Perseus.
Burne-Jones probably used William Morris'Earthly Paradise every bit the source for this field of study and he returned to it a number of times, although he rarely depicted Danaë imprisoned in a tower.
Estimated at £40,000-60,000, it was knocked down for more than double the height guide at £135,000, making it the about expensive Burne-Jones drawing of this subject to sell at auction by some margin.
The other 6-figure work from the group was a study for the left-paw department of a larger watercolour, Beloved disguised equally Reason, dated 1870 and now in the Due south African National Gallery, Cape Boondocks.
The 13 x 7¼in (34 10 18cm) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour heightened with gilt and touches of gum arabic on paper took £130,000 confronting the aforementioned guide.
The drove also featured many individual drawings and sketches intended for the artist'due south granddaughter Angela Mackail (later the novelist Angela Thirkell). Among the highlights here was a humorous sketch titled School for Dragon Babies, 1884, which took £9000 confronting a £2500-3500 guess.
Millais' own act of kindness
Portrait of a immature John Wycliffe Taylor by John Everett Millais – £130,000 at Christie's.
Stiff bidding also emerged for a portrait of a young John Wycliffe Taylor at the age of five by swain Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais (1829-96).
Offered at Christie's twenty years after it had sold in the aforementioned rooms for £85,000, information technology was secured over top estimate at £130,000.
Taylor was the son of the playwright Tom Taylor, editor of Dial from 1874-80 and an early champion of Millais' work.
The fourteen x 10in (35 x 27cm) oil on panel was painted to fulfil a promise that Millais made to Taylor before John was built-in; that if he ever had a son, Millais would pigment the kid in return for Taylor'due south 'many an act of friendly kindness'.
Leading the accuse for female artists was Laura Knight (1877- 1970), 1 of the more bankable artists of her generation whose secondary-marketplace prices have risen considerably in the last ii decades.
She was given special attention in the auction at Sotheby's where 10 pictures past her were offered, including scenes of circus performers and gypsies, dancers and studio life, with all bar one getting away.
The star was a big 5ft 2in 10 4ft (1.57 x 1.22m) oil on canvas depicting a scene in the wings of a theatre, Motley, Preparing for her Entrance, which came from the family unit of H Earl Hoover, the Chicago vacuum-cleaner magnate, and was being sold at auction for the first time. It tipped in a higher place top guide to sell for £160,000.
A portrait of the artist by her husband Harold Knight (1874-1961) was offered from the same source and sold for an judge-busting £70,000.
Fountain view shoots away
Sotheby's sale was led by Neo-Classicist painter John William Godward (1861-1922). At the Fountain was recently rediscovered afterwards more than a century in a private drove in Sweden. Co-ordinate to Sotheby's, the work epitomised "the languid glamour of Godward's all-time work with carefully rendered textures of soft fabric, cool marble and warm living flesh". It got abroad on lesser estimate at £300,000.
Drawing more bids was David Roberts' (1796-1864) expansive cityscape of St Paul'southward, Somerset Firm and Temple, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862.
Acquired by the vendor for £16,000 at Phillips London in 1980, it proved a shrewd investment when information technology sold comfortably above top estimate for £205,000 – the nigh expensive London view to sell at sale backside the topographical Centre Eastern landscapes for which Roberts is best known.
Source: https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2019/january/2375/auction-reports/art-market-burne-jones-stars-at-auction-as-first-major-london-exhibition-for-over-four-decades-opens/
0 Response to "Edward Burne Jones Most Expensive Art Victorian Artist Dreamer"
Post a Comment