Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Head of a young woman, probably Ellen Smith, in profile to left (recto); Head of a woman (verso)

pencil on paper
9 3/8 x 7¾ in.

The drawing is not included in Virginia Surtees' catalogue raisonné of Rossetti's work, but it appears to date from the 1860s and to represent Ellen Smith, who frequently sat to him during this decade. His first recorded likeness of her, a drawing in the Birmingham Art Gallery, dates from 1863, and she modelled for a number of works a few years later. They included Washing Hands (1865), The Beloved (1865-6), Joli Coeur (1867), A Christmas Carol (1867), and the three watercolour versions of The Loving Cup (1867).

Ellen Smith was neither as voluptuous as Fanny Cornforth nor as soulful as Alexa Wilding or Jane Morris. Her charms were of a homelier order, and she was in fact a Chelsea laundry girl as well as being, like so many of Rossetti's models at this period, of equivocal virtue. She also sat to Burne-Jones, Poynter, Spencer Stanhope, Simeon Solomon, G.J. Pinwell and G.P. Boyce, who often mentions her in his published diary.

Smith's modelling career had an abrupt and unhappy ending. According to Rossetti's assistant H.T. Dunn, this 'sweet young girl...got her face sadly cut about and disfigured by a brute of a soldier and then of course she was of no more use as a model'. By 1873 she had settled for matrimony and gone back to laundering. On 17 February that year Boyce recorded in his diary that 'Ellen Smith, now Mrs Elson, called on me to tell me she had been married about three weeks ago to an old acquaintance and suitor, a cabman. She wishes to do some laundry work on her own account as her husband's earnings are small'. The kind-hearted Boyce had already helped her financially on previous occasions, and no doubt he obliged yet again.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=8&intObjectID=5318335&sid=0545c7f3-3455-4ae9-8651-dfe2783d1493

William Holman Hunt - Study for the head of Christ in 'The Shadow of Death'

pencil, red chalk and brown wash, heightened with white on paper incised along the left, right and lower margin
11½ x 11¼ in.

Even though the identity of the model is uncertain, the eyes, open mouth and upstretched arms, suggest that this is a study for the head of the Saviour in The Shadow of Death (1870-72, Manchester Art Gallery). One of Hunt's most popular and reproduced works, The Shadow of Death depicts Christ as a young carpenter stretching out his arms after sawing wood, with the sun falling on his figure in such a way as to create a shadow behind him on a row of carpenter's tools, prefiguring the crucifixion.

Judith Bronkhurst dates the present drawing to circa 1872, when after returning from the Holy Land, Hunt reworked the head of Christ. It is believed that the sitter could be the Irish model Mary O'Brien, who sat to Hunt for a number of pictures including The Bride of Bethlehem (Private Collection). There is also an oil sketch of the same sitter in the Manchester City Gallery. It was not unusual for Hunt to use female sitters as models for Christ; he had initially adopted this idea in The Light of the World (Keble College, Oxford).

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5318334&sid=0545c7f3-3455-4ae9-8651-dfe2783d1493

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - portrait of Annie Miller

pencil on paper
14 3/4 x 13 1/4

auctioned in 2006, previously unknown. Dated to about 1860. Identified by her long straight nose, and strong chin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Miller

Bonhams to Sell Painting that Hides Mystery of Millais Brothers Collaboration

[this is worth looking at full size by clicking on the above]

LONDON.- Brotherly rivalry is making headlines with the David and Ed Miliband leadership contest, and in contrast now Bonhams are to offer an example of brotherly partnership in their 19th Century Paintings auction on 29th September 2010.

The painting entitled ‘James Wyatt and his Granddaughter Mary Wyatt’ by William Henry Millais, who was assisted in its production by his brother, the better-known Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais, is expected to fetch £20,000-30,000.

The stunning work for auction at Bonhams is a copy of John Everett Millais’ painting of the same subject (1849), now in the collection of Lord Lloyd Webber. The sitter’s son, James Wyatt Junior, liked the original so much that he commissioned William Henry Millais, through his older brother, to create a copy in 1850. John Everett Millais finished the hands and faces of the sitters in his brother’s work, and effectively acted as agent arranging the commission. Also included for sale is a hand written letter from him to the client discussing the painting and requesting payment.

Charles O’Brien, Department Head, comments, “It is known that the face was painted by the older, more famous brother John Everett Millais, but on close inspection it seems to me that his hand is evident throughout the picture. It’s a beautiful picture infused with the light of summer, made more wonderful by the hidden message of brotherly love – the older brother supporting and wanting acclaim for his lesser known sibling.”

James Wyatt (1774-1853) was the curator of the Duke of Marlborough’s collection at Blenheim and Mayor of Oxford in 1842-3. He was also a keen wood carver, and depicted on the table next to him is an oval oak box carved by himself which was one of his treasured possessions. The original box is also for sale with the painting and all three items (painting, letter and box) are being offered for auction by his descendants. Together they make a wonderful group and would be an asset to any collection.

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=38448

John William Waterhouse - The Shrine

34.5 x 16.5"
exhibited New Gallery 1895

http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=2

Edward Burne-Jones - Pilgrim at the Gate of Idleness

signed with initials and dated 1884
38 x 51.5"

'Lo, idleness opes the gate
Where through the wandering man awaits
So many fair and gallant shows
Born of the Romance of the Rose'
verse written by William Morris

BJ was inspired by Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose from 1874 onwards and though initially inspired designs for embroidery (which were to hang Raunton Grange, Northampton - now in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow) other works formed a trilogy Love and the Pilgrim, now in The Tate painted in the 1890's.

Frederick Sandys - portraits

[James Harvey Brand]
coloured chalks
signed and dated 1888
28 x 21"

[Portrsit of a young gentleman]
coloured chalks]
28 x 21"

G F Watts - Portrait of Miss Norah Bourke (Mrs Lindsay)

35.5 x 27.5"
c. 1891-3

Norah Mary Madeline, the daughter of Major the Hon. Edward Roden Bourke and later the wife of Captain Henry Lindsay, Violet Granby' brother.

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale - The deceitfulness of riches

[Love and his Counterfeits]
Pencil and Watercolor w/scratching out, laid down on canvas
26 x 52.4 in.
Signed



[The deceitfulness of riches]

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 661,500 GBP (1998)
signed and dated l.r.: ELEANOR/F-BRICKDALE/1901; signed and inscribed with artist's address 38 Norland Square W on the reverse
oil on canvas
85 by 110 cm., 33 1/2 by 43 1/4 in.

The present richly coloured allegorical subject, The Deceitfulness of Riches, is one of the most ambitious of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's early paintings. It was first exhibited in 1901 at the Royal Academy, and then subsequently included in the exhibition of her oils and watercolours held at Leighton House in February 1902. This exhibition was entitled ''Such Stuff as Dreams are made of!'' (a loose quotation from Shakespeare's The Tempest).
The majority of Fortescue-Brickdale's paintings have literary themes and she was of course also well known as an illustrator of poems, legends and folktales. However, on the present occasion both the painted subject and the words of the title were of the artist's own devising. When first exhibited, there was much debate as to the purpose of the allegory, which, according to M.H. Dixon, was 'translated into a hundred meanings and tortured by the spring visitor to Burlington House into symbols little dreamed of by its originator.' In the same article in the 1902 Magazine of Art the following interpretation was offered: 'A mighty princess, clothed in orange garments, is pictured for us so closely guarded by jealous attendants as to be shut out altogether from the outside world. No harsh breath from the common air may touch the lady's cheek. The orphan and the widow are turned from her gates in order that she may not look upon the face of sorrow. Not willingly hard or callous is this prisoner of a luxurious place, only oblivious from force of circumstances. ... ''The Deceitfulness of Riches'' is a lay sermon on the tyranny of soft environment and on the unwitting cruelty which lurks in ignorance.' The subject of a young woman leading a sequestered existence - being offered flowers and fruit by attentive servants and serenaded by a musician with a lute, is entirely in character with the other-worldly and historicist instincts of the artists who revived the principles of Pre-Raphaelitism at the turn of the century.

The Deceitfulness of Riches represents the type of painting that led Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale to become one of the admired and talked-about painters of the day. In 1901, on the occasion of an exhibition of her watercolours at Dowdeswells Gallery in New Bond Street, she was described by one critic as a 'Pre-Raphaelite revivalist', and by another as an exponent of 'Neo-Pre-Raphaelitism'. These terms indicate that the artist was recognised as one of the younger generation of artists who at the turn of the century were consciously reviving the meticulous techniques and luminous colour of Ford Madox Brown, Holman Hunt and Rossetti. In the same year Canon Scott Holland wrote ecstatically of Fortescue-Brickdale's appearance on the artistic scene: 'We are not all dead. There is a new force to be felt. There is a new lamp kindled. Some one can still see visions: and can embody what is seen in the glory of colour ...' Commenting on the Dowdeswell exhibition, Holland was struck by the richness of the work, exclaiming: 'Colour? The room glows with it, as if it were flung out of live jewels. The flaming crimsons, the crisp greens, the sheen of rose, speak and sing out of their frames; and you find yourself laughing aloud unawares, for sheer delight, in response. The pictures recall the small gems that Rossetti painted ... They are vivid and delicate like young Millais' ''Ferdinand''.' The rich colour, as well as the technical elaboration, of The Deceitfulness of Riches, was commented upon in the Spectator's review of the 1901 Royal Academy: 'Gorgeous and beautiful in colour, its execution seems to suggest that the artist, not having quite realised the conditions of oil paint, has been trying after the effects of enamel and coloured relief.'

http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?sale_number=LN8683&live_lot_id=46

G F Watts - Love and Death

a study
35.5 x 16.5
painted c. 1870's - 1880's.

One of Watt's most important pictures inspired by the slow, wasting disease of Lord Lothian. There are a number of finished versions. Laege scale pictures are at the Whitworh Gallery, the Tate and in Adelaide, moderately sized ones are in Bristol and Melbourne, and a small one is in Liverpool.