Description
2002 CHRISTIE'S IMPORTANT BRITISH ART 11/27/02 LONDON, Three very different works by Joseph Mallord William Turner are featured in Christie's sale of important British pictures from the 18th to the 20th centuries—The Unpaid Bill; Mont Blanc from Fort Rocha, Val d'Aosta; and Lebanon in a thunderstorm. The Unpaid Bill, a fascinating and unusual picture by Turner in the Dutch seventeenth century manner of David Teniers, is the earliest known British picture of the interior of a dentist's surgery at the start of the 19th century. Mont Blanc from Fort Rocha, Val d'Aosta, one of the largest watercolors Turner ever produced and formerly in the collection of Walter Fawkes, one of Turner's most important patrons, depicts the dramatic and precipitous terrain of the Alps. Lebanon in a thunderstorm is one of only three watercolors Turner ever executed of the Lebanon. The sale also includes a fairy painting by J A Fitzgerald, one of the most important and prolific exponents of the genre. Unusually for Fitzgerald the scene is one taken from literature, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and shows Titania with the Changeling child over whom Titania and Oberon quarreled. Christie's also offers at auction the William Morris Aeneid, property of The Lord Lloyd-Webber . Regarded as his calligraphic masterpiece, the Aeneid was the last and most ambitious of the twenty-one illuminated manuscripts undertaken by Morris in the five years from 1870. Read more > Another high-Victorian highlight is a magnificent work by J.W.Waterhouse, never previously exhibited, entitled Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may after Robert Herrick's verse of the same. It demonstrates Waterhouse's unique ability to fuse a Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic with the technical facility he acquired through his exposure to French realism. James Tissot's Seaside, an essential work within the artist's oeuvre, gains special significance as a portrait of Kathleen Newton, his mistress, which was executed during the time when they lived and traveled together. Read more > Jonathan Horwich, Department Head, Christie's British & Irish Art, provides insight and history in a special audio presentation about James Tissot's Seaside, one of the artist's finest portraits. The Reconciliation of the Montagues and the Capulets over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet by Frederic, Lord Leighton, is a major early work inspired by Leighton's experience of Italy and its artistic legacy. Its dramatic composition and native grandeur also relate to the artist's friendship with Mrs Adelaide Sartoris and her theatrical circle.This post auction catalog consists 31 lots all illustrated in color and all described in detail. Catalog is in fine condition. Sale 6666, Lot 19 James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902) Seaside Oil on canvas Estimate:
