19th Century British Art

After abandoning his early career as a contributor to Punch and the Illustrated London News, Myles Birket Foster (1825-99) went on to establish his reputation as a painter of technically skilled and highly polished watercolours, depicting landscapes and rustic subjects from Scotland to the Mediterranean.

The last panoramic painting by William Powell Frith (1819-1909) in private hands has been sold – but will not vanish from the public eye just yet.

London Judaica dealer Joseph Landau travelled to Sworders in Stansted Moutfitchet on March 13 with the sole purpose of buying a pencil, charcoal and white chalk drawing Carrying the Torah by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905).

Two previously unpublished ink sketches by John Constable (1776 -1837) excelled at Chiswick Auctions’ latest British & European Fine Art sale.

Bonhams’ (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) latest sale of 19th century pictures in London may have been small – running to just over 100 lots – but what it lacked in size it made up with the broad scope of its contents.

Helped by conservatively pitched estimates, a clutch of middle-market Orientalist pictures achieved some modest growth in value on their first return to auction in three decades.

This study (below) was one of 10 drawings by Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) consigned by an unidentified charitable trust to Bonhams’ 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art sale on February 20.

Drawing interest from the US was a portrait of a fierce-looking Scottish laird by John Pettie (1839-93).

A lengthy provenance was key to the success of a large watercolour by the 19th century artist David Cox (1783-1859).

A 19th century masterpiece by William Powell Frith (1819- 1909) that serves as a who’s who of influential Victorians is on offer from a new St James’s gallery for £10m.

Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was the toast of London during the latest Victorian art sales held in the capital, where buyers continued to covet blue-chip Pre-Raphaelite art, market-fresh material – and invest in female names.

A trademark nocturnal scene by Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) got away on low estimate for £80,000 at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Haslemere in Surrey.

The Victorian Conservative politician Lord Coventry is believed to have commissioned this portrait of favourite hounds Rambler and Marksman.

A portrait of Thomas Cobley Gent of Buttsford, Colebrooke (d.1844), is believed to portray ‘Old Uncle Tom Cobley’, from the tradition song Widecombe Fair, as a young boy.

A marine scene by Alfred Priest (1810-50) is among the highlights at English and Continental Antiques’ final exhibition of the year.

British watercolours and oils from the 18th and 19th centuries grabbed bidders’ attention at a recent Oxford auction, proving there is life in this traditional market given the right artists and good provenance.

View of a Garden by Thomas Churchyard of Woodbridge (1798-1865) is offered for £1400 in the exhibition Artist on the Deben, which features 19th century Suffolk artists.

Distinctly patriotic in nature, stage and mail coach depictions started c.1815, reaching peak popularity in the later 1820s with the artist James Pollard (1792-1867).