Colour and Character in Highlights from Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S.,
Head of a Young Man.
Estimate £15,000–20,000

This striking head study appears to relate to Burne-Jones’ watercolour of 1870-3, Love Among the Ruins (Christie’s, London, 11 July 2013, lot 3). The model for this work was probably Alessandro di Marco, Burne-Jones’ favourite male model, who appears in several important works by the artist.

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John William Godward, R.B.A.,
Pyrallis.
Estimate £100,000–150,000

Pyrallis was painted during the first decade that Godward lived in Rome. With her veil of soft, rose-hued material and downward expression, Pyrallis is a particularly modest and introspective study of female beauty by an artist who mastered the subject, and made it the obsession of his artistic life.

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Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A.,
Expectation (Impatient).
Estimate £15,000–20,000

Expectation depicts a corner of the artist’s beautiful house at Grove End Road, with its serpentine-marble walls and porphyry and gilt window-frames. The mahogany couch, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and furnished with a silk cushion, was one of a pair designed by Tadema for use in his studio around 1893; one is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

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James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot,
Room Overlooking the Harbour.
Estimate £400,000–600,000

The figure of the woman in Room Overlooking the Harbour was based upon a watercolour of a woman playing chess (Museé Magnin, Dijon) which was among Tissot’s first depictions of the great love of his life, Kathleen Newton, whose story has been shrouded in mystery.

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John William Godward, R.B.A.,
An Edition de Luxe.
Estimate £450,000–650,000

An Edition de Luxe was unlocated when Vern Swanson published his first monograph on Godward in 1997 but is reproduced in its full glory in his revised book of 2019 where he describes it as a ‘masterpiece’. It demonstrates Godward’s exceptional ability to render fabrics in exquisite detail and to contrast soft, warm, living flesh with cool polished marble and tactile animal-skins.

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Edward Lear, R.S.W.,
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.
Estimate £15,000–20,000

Lear was commissioned to work on a painting of Jerusalem at sunset from the Mount of Olives. He spent almost a fortnight studying the view from the Mount of Olives and making a number of drawings, which he used as the basis for later watercolours such as the present work.

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William Powell Frith, R.A.,
The Lover's Seat.
Estimate £20,000–30,000

This painting shows the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin, writer of Frankenstein, at the time of their love affair in 1814. Frith, in preparation for the present painting, visited the house of Shelley's son at Boscombe in Dorset, where he studied portraits of the poet and of Mary, and upon which he based their likenesses.

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Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn, R.A.,
Blue and Gold.
Estimate £40,000–60,000

The composition of Blue and Gold was based upon de Glehn's portrait of his wife Jane de Glehn at Cheyne Walk of 1904. In the present work a professional model wears the same gold dress and sits on a love-seat which appears in a number of other works by the artist from this period.

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Sir John Alfred Arnesby Brown, R.A.,
The River, Afterglow.
Estimate £70,000–100,000

The River, Afterglow is without doubt Brown’s most successful picture to date, and arguably the most accomplished of all his pictures for its balance of composition and harmony of colour. In 1909, it was exhibited as the artist's only offering at the Royal Academy and in 1911 the artist chose it as his contribution to the International Fine Arts Exhibition held in Rome.

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Dame Laura Knight, R.A., R.W.S.,
Allez Oop!.
Estimate £80,000–120,000

Allez Oop! was painted in 1954 based upon a sketch made almost a quarter of a century earlier, in 1930, the same year as Ballet Girl and Dressmaker (sold in these rooms, 12 July 2018, lot 80). Both depict a quartet of female acrobats and two males leaping onto the back of a horse as it gallops around the circus ring amid the glaring lights and amazed crowd.

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