The Pale Complexion of True Love by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale is now in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay.
Members of the UK trade have recently marked sales to overseas institutions.
In St James’s, London, dealer Martin Beisly found a new home for an early work by the artist Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945) at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, which is working to enlarge its collection of British art.
Painted in 1899, the oil on canvas The Pale Complexion of True Love is taken from a scene in Shakespeare’s As you Like It, and shows the shepherds Phoebe and Silvus dressed as rather wealthier characters than they are presented in the play.
Fortescue-Brickdale was a popular English painter, illustrator and decorator. This was her first large-format oil on canvas, and is unusual for her output, which mainly comprises watercolours, which brought her the most commercial success.
The picture was acquired through donation from the Meyer Louis-Dreyfus collection (in support of artists from foreign schools) through the intermediary of the Société des Amis des Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie. It is exhibited on the fourth level of the Upstairs Pavilion. It joins other recent acquisitions the museum has made of British art including works by John Everett Millais, Arthur George Walker and Arthur Severn.
This early 18th century leather portrait of Louis XIV went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
In North Yorkshire, RN Myers has announced the sale of an early 18th century leather portrait of Louis XIV to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Completed in repoussé leather, it derives from a circular medallion by François Girardon (1628-1715) and was probably made in the Royal Manufacture of Hungarian Leathers of Saint-Denis established by the King in 1702.
Alejandro Mario Yllanes’ Estaño Maldito, 1937, oil on burlap 4ft 8in x 6ft 5in (1.42 x 1.97m), was acquired by The Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Ben Elwes Fine Art, London.
Meanwhile three US institutions and one in Latin American have acquired works by indigenous Bolivian artist Alejandro Mario Yllanes (1913-c.1960) from Ben Elwes Fine Art, which held two exhibitions of his pictures during summer and winter London Art Week last year. The 12 sales included a recently discovered self-portrait by the artist and two monumental paintings. They will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College and the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA).
Eduardo Costantini, founder and chairman of MALBA says: "Yllanes for me was an amazing discovery, I couldn’t believe I found a modern Latin American artist of this high quality after collecting for more than 40 years.”
Its acquisition, Tragedia del Pongo of 1932, is to be exhibited at MALBA this year. Arguably the artist’s masterpiece, it is his largest work at nearly three metres tall.
Other sales included Estaño Maldito (Cursed Tin), 1937, which went to The Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
