- 18K GOLD PIETRA DURA BROOCH W/ CHRISTIAN
18K GOLD PIETRA DURA BROOCH W/ CHRISTIAN IMAGERY, 19THA 19th c. Italian pietra dura micromosaic brooch, with the depiction of two doves under a chi rho (Constantine's cross), with an alpha and omega. Below the doves, wheat and grapes represent the Eucharist. Tested 18k gold frame. The total weight of the piece is 8.2 dwt.
Measures 1 1/2" in diameter.
Provenance: The Webster House collection.
Condition
Very good condition.
- ITALIAN PIETRA DURA PLAQUE OF CHALICE
ITALIAN PIETRA DURA PLAQUE OF CHALICE WITH FOUR DOVES, THE DOVES OF PLINY 4 ½" x 6 ½" Pietra dura plaque of multicolor stones, depicting four white doves above a chalice, after Roman mosaic from Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli; unframed.
- AN ITALIAN MICRO-MOSAIC DECORATED FOYER
AN ITALIAN MICRO-MOSAIC DECORATED FOYER TABLE An Italian micro-mosaic decorated foyer table, top possibly 19th century the circular top having a central panel depicting the Doves of Pliny, after Sosus of Pergamon from Hadrian's Villa, surrounded by six detailed architectural Roman scenes including the Colosseum, St. Peters Square, the Pantheon, within concentric borders of marble, lapis lazuli with inset malachite banding, and rising on a giltwood base having a baluster standard, and rising on inswept legs accented with fruit clusters, 27.5"h x 36"dia.
- LLADRO BIRD FIGURE, COUPLE OF DOVESTwo
LLADRO BIRD FIGURE, COUPLE OF DOVESTwo bright white porcelain doves joined together. Piece is a symbol of love; the doves form a heart wit their necks. Lladro backstamp.
Artist: Antonio Ballester
Issued: 20th c.
Dimensions: 5"H x 8.5"W
Manufacturer: Lladro
Country of Origin: Spain
- ITALIAN GRAND TOUR MICROMOSAIC PLAQUE19th
ITALIAN GRAND TOUR MICROMOSAIC PLAQUE19th century, micromosaic of the Doves of Pliny after Giacomo Raffaelli (Italian, 1753?1836), shaped black marble plaque, 6-3/4 x 4-7/8 in.
Provenance: Private Charleston, South Carolina Collection
Condition:
some edge flakes and chips, some scratches, faint water ring stain at center
- ANTIQUE DOVES OF PLINY MICRO MOSAIC
ANTIQUE DOVES OF PLINY MICRO MOSAIC BROOCH. Italy, late 19th century. Round brooch with inlaid mosaic depicting the doves of Pliny within jet black glass background. Yellow gold filled mounting with hinged pin stem, 'C' clasp, approx. 1.25"d. Overall condition good, minor surface wear.
- An Italian Micromosaic Plaque
19th Century
depicting
An Italian Micromosaic Plaque
19th Century
depicting the Doves of Pliny.
4 3/4 x 6 1/4 inches.
- Kelmscott Press. Psalmi Penitentiales,
Kelmscott Press. Psalmi Penitentiales, ed. F. S. Ellis, Printed by William Morris, 1894. One of 300 copies, printed in red and black, decorative borders and initials. 4to., cont red morocco gilt, aeg. by the Doves Bindery, 1897/Provenance: Spetchley Park
- A FINE ITALIAN MICRO-MOSAIC PLAQUE OF
A FINE ITALIAN MICRO-MOSAIC PLAQUE OF THE DOVES OF PLINY BY THE VATICAN MOSAIC WORKSHOP A fine Italian micro-mosaic plaque of the Doves of Pliny by the Vatican Mosaic Workshop, late 19th century, paper label to reverse with printed border with initials 'R.F.S.P.V.' beneath a cipher of the crossed keys of St. Peter, and with inked Italian inscription reading '#1403 Tazza e Palmbez', within giltwood frame, plaque 16"h x 20"w; framed 23.5"h x 27"w.
- § GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
MAY
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
MAY GREEN, 1927 (TASSI 24) Etching, signed in pencil to margin11cm (4 1/4in), 16cm (6 1/4in)Provenance: Christie's, South Kensington, 16th April 2014, lot 121.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.24.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.16.Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20Note: According to Gordon Cooke, this was the only etching which Sutherland made in 1927 (op.cit, unpaginated). He has also explained that it is the last in a series of four etchings, including Cray Fields and St Mary Hatch, ‘which seem to celebrate both religious and rural values, anchoring the scenes to the calendar and particular places.’
- § GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
ST.
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
ST. MARY'S HATCH, 1926 (TASSI 22) Etching, signed in pencil to margin12cm (4 3/4in), 18cm (7in)Provenance: Mrs A. M. Bernhard-Smith, Twenty-One Gallery, LondonChristie's, South Kensington, 19th May 2016, lot 52.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.22.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.13.Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20Note:St Mary's Hatch comes from ‘a series of small, densely worked etchings of rural England, thatched cottages and churches, fields with stooks of corn, the setting sun and the first evening stars, which were intensely poetic evocations of a more or less lost world of innocence and religious piety.’ (Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London 1982, p. 9)
- § GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
PECKEN
§ GRAHAM SUTHERLAND O.M. (BRITISH 1903-1980)
PECKEN WOOD, 1925 (TASSI 21) Etching, signed in pencil to margin13.5cm (5 1/4in), 18cm (7in)Provenance: Mrs A. M. Bernhard-Smith, Twenty-One Gallery, LondonChristie's, South Kensington, 19th May 2016, lot 51.Literature: Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1988, no.21.Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, no.10.Graham Sutherland specialised in etching whilst a student at London University’s Goldsmith’s College School of Art between 1921 and 1926. He was taught by Malcolm Osborne and Stanley Anderson and trained alongside Paul Drury and William Larkins. It was during this formative period that he made the following group of etchings, with May Green created in 1927; all of them reveal his precocious and emerging talent. Indeed, Sutherland established his professional standing as a printmaker and held his first solo exhibition in 1924, at the Twenty-One Gallery in London. The following year he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engraves. Shortly after graduating, he was appointed to the staff of Chelsea College of Art, where he taught engraving until 1932.In 1924, Larkins found an impression of The Herdman’s Cottage etching of 1850 by the visionary artist Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a shop on the Charing Cross Road and showed it to his fellow students. Sutherland recalled the impact it had on him: ‘I remember that I was amazed at its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety of the multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity…As we became familiar with Palmer’s later etchings, we ‘bit’ our plates deeper. We had always been warned against ‘overbiting’. But we did ‘overbite’ and we ‘burnished’ our way through innumerable ‘states’ quite unrepentant at the way we punished and maltreated the copper…It seemed to me wonderful that a strong emotion, such as was Palmer’s, could change and transform the appearance of things.’ (1)Palmer’s reputation had diminished since his death in 1881, but was resurrected when an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926. As illustrated in the current group, Roberto Tassi has explained that Palmer’s influence on Sutherland’s etchings showed ‘in the presence of the sun and its light shining through the trees, the starry sky streaked with horizontal clouds, the contrast between the evening dusk that is already creeping over the land in thickening shadows and the soaring beams of the setting sun.’ (2)Sutherland engaged with and extended the English pastoral tradition and its idealism, with Gordon Cooke proclaiming: ‘Prints such as Village, Pecken Wood, Cray Fields, St Mary Hatch, Lammas and May Green concern the unchanging experience of life in the countryside, the generations which have worked in it and lived from it and the manner in which nature rules such a way of life.’ (3) Yet Sutherland’s etched images of the mid-1920s are also laced with nostalgia - as rural communities changed - and with an embracing of religion which culminated in his acceptance into the Roman Catholic church in 1926.Tassi continues: ‘Throughout this period, the influence of Palmer continues, most noticeably in the atmosphere, which seems to be suspended, wrapped in mystery and a tinge of mysticism. The sun, the doves, the stars, the birds and the sheep all become religious symbols; the air is one of enchantment; the contrast between light and shade, though violent, is not disturbing, but seems rather to diffuse an air or quietude over the world. In general, however, the feeling is one of abstraction rather than life.’ (4)Sutherland’s success as an etcher came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the art market following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He turned to painting, but returned to print-making at various points during his career, including lithography in the 1940s and 1950s before a resumption of etching in the 1970s.(1) As quoted in Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London, 1982, p 9.(2) Roberto Tassi and Edward Quinn, Graham Sutherland: Complete Graphic Work, London 1978, p.19(3) Gordon Cooke, Graham Sutherland: Early Etchings, London 1993, unpaginated(4) Tassi op.cit., p.20Note: Ronald Alley has written about this work that the rural world it depicts ‘is one of the past, the evocation of a mode of village life which had almost completely passed away. The emphasis is on the autumnal fertility of nature, with man living in communion with nature and...the moment depicted is when the sun is setting, or near setting and the stars are beginning to come out.' (Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, London 1983, p. 59)