Abigail Stephens (1628-88) holding a lily, attributed to English portrait painter Joan Carlile (c.1606-79) – £12,000 at Miles Wynn Cato.
Dealers reported visits from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cleveland Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Princeton University Art Museum, J Paul Getty Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Harvard Museums, and the Hispanic Society of America.
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art made a number of good sales at prices well in to six figures from its LAW exhibition Settecento Veneto: Venetian Drawings of the Eighteenth Century. Ongpin said: “We have had interest in several works including from museums. There has been a steady stream of visitors, including fresh faces who have found us using the LAW map, which we’re delighted by.”
Among the sales across the week was an 18th century portrait by George Romney (1734-1802) of Mrs Margaret Smith (1777) from Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker for a six-figure sum and a picture by Juana Romani(1867-1924) at Elliott Fine Art’s exhibition Paintings: 1850-1900 which sold to a US institution (the asking price was £60,000).
Portrait of a woman by Jean-Leon Gérôme (1824-1904) – £75,000 at Colnaghi Elliott Master Drawings.
At Colnaghi Elliott Master Drawings a portrait study of a woman by Jean-Léon Gérôme, drawn on his first visit to Egypt, sold with an asking price of £75,000.
A portrait of Abigail Stephens (1628-88) holding a lily (pictured above, top) attributed to English portrait painter Joan Carlile (c.1606-79) was among the sales at Miles Wynn Cato’s exhibition British Art Rediscovered at Cromwell Place.
Carlile, one of the earliest British professional female artists, painted this portrait between 1640s-50s when Stephens (later Lady Harley) was aged between 18-25. The picture, previously unrecorded, had an asking price of £12,000.
Carnival in Rome by Carl-Friedrich-Heinrich Werner (1808-94) – £8000 at Charles Beddington.
London Art Week (LAW) (running from July 3-8) was themed this season around Music & Dance and partnered with the arts hub Cromwell Place and the Philharmonia Orchestra (with principal sponsor law firm Charles Russell Speechlys).
Among the sales with a music theme was a c.1850 bronze Cast of the left hand of Fryderyk Chopin by Jean-Baptiste A Clesinger (1814-83) at Ben Elwes Fine Art (which sold following press previews of LAW).
