From the Blog
News, stories and musings from the eclectic world of S&W.
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Versand am 24 Januar 2024
Attributed to Irish-Australian artist Tate Adams (1922–2018), this striking symbolist work evoking Buddhist monks in saffron robes was possibly painted during Adams's time in Ceylon, whilst serving with the British Admiralty in 1943
Versand am 23 Januar 2024
We have added interesting new pictures to our 19th-century Algiers collection by English eccentric and 'wayward philosopher' George John Cayley (1826–1878)
Versand am 22 Januar 2024
Our new collection of 1830s watercolours—depicting flowers, leaves, butterflies and other insects—were exquisitely painted by Louisa Hare (1776–1853), who was married to Captain James Hare (1772–1826) of Whittern estate at Lyonshall in Herefordshire
Versand am 16 Januar 2024
This early-Victorian drawing made us look twice this week—a quirky collaged image that combines hand-coloured engravings with layered paper and original watercolour
Versand am 14 Januar 2024
Late Romantic narrative illustrative art was highly popular in the second half of the 19th century, particularly amongst women artists, but its study has been neglected
Versand am 02 Januar 2024
We love (and covet) this elegant Wimpole Street interior by Henry William Burgess
Versand am 28 Dezember 2023
Our Picture of the Month for December is a triumph in aesthetic elegance by the distinguished ceramics designer and potter Gordon Mitchell Forsyth RI ARCA (1879–1952)
Versand am 26 Dezember 2023
With Christmas as we know it being largely a Victorian invention, the Victorian home—and even more so, the Victorian rectory—seems uniquely suited to this time of year
Versand am 24 Dezember 2023
Some of you may recognise the cherubic red-head in this vision of Yuletide bliss as the spirited putto from Gaston Cervelli's satirical cartoons, Fighting and Bawling Babies (swipe left!)
Versand am 19 Dezember 2023
Championing another female, today we have this captivating large watercolour by Madeline Rachel Wells RBA (1879–1959)
Versand am 17 Dezember 2023
We have enjoyed listing some charming pictures this week spanning four female generations of the Waller-Bridge family—of inimitable Fleabag writer and actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge fame
Versand am 12 Dezember 2023
We're loving our new collection of Edwardian cartoons capturing a slice of life on the North Wales coast around Anglesey, Llandudno and Rhyl in 1912–13
Versand am 10 Dezember 2023
New this week, we have a beautiful charcoal drawing with an intriguing identity that takes us to the very heart of Napoleonic France
Versand am 21 November 2023
Our new collection of picturesque views in the Peak District and North Wales 1832
Versand am 19 November 2023
This interesting view at Etna around 1837, by landscape painter James Bridges (1799–1865), shows the crater 'La Cisternazza', which formed dramatically when the top part of Etna collapsed during the 1797 eruption
Versand am 07 November 2023
We have enjoyed this week listing a fabulously stylish collection of ex libris relating to the Vienna Secession movement, featuring designs by some of the leading graphic artists of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century
Versand am 05 November 2023
Maria Hampshire Eaton (1862–1944) was a woman seemingly ahead of her time: awarded a medal by the South Kensington Schools, relocating to Canada for a period in the 1880s and by 1901 describing herself as an 'artist photographer [on her] own acc[ount]'
Versand am 04 November 2023
Newly listed, these entertaining hand-illustrated envelopes of philatelic interest
Versand am 26 Oktober 2023
S&W Picture of the Month is by one of the most significant artists to have hailed from the Channel Islands
Versand am 24 Oktober 2023
I'd love to know more about the hand behind our new collection of caricatures of the British Raj
Versand am 22 Oktober 2023
From our new collection of works, 'Souvenir of Naples', are these jewel-like renderings of the frescoes at Pompeii by a local early 19th-century artist
Versand am 17 Oktober 2023
The subject may be southern European but this small gem of a painting by Scottish artist Middleton Alexander Jameson (1851–1919) bears the influence of his time spent in the northern French artist colonies at Grez-sur-Loing and Etaples, and later St Ives in Cornwall
Versand am 15 Oktober 2023
When something tugs on the personal heart strings it's very hard not to get carried away with imagining narratives of the past
Versand am 10 Oktober 2023
A gorgeous trio of new (200-year-old) Chinese paintings on pith this week—the watercolour pooling atop the spongy tissue of the Tetrapanex papyrifera plant to assert their existence with age-defying vibrancy
Versand am 08 Oktober 2023
The Valley of the Rocks at Watcombe near Torquay—once part of the Watcombe Park estate belonging to Isambard Kingdom Brunel—in the mid-19th-century played host to two open-air music fetes, attended by thousands
Versand am 26 September 2023
New this week, a collection of large watercolours by Lt Col J.A. Armstrong
Versand am 24 September 2023
Autumn is officially here, and this week we are musing on the cyclical passing of time and the iconography of the seasons, so engrained in the British psyche, with our new collection of nature illustrations
Versand am 19 September 2023
Not so far from us today, with this Somerset subject—a poetic rendition of the quarry at Ham Hill by Victorian painter Alfred Tidey (1808–1892)
Versand am 17 September 2023
Learning about the English eccentric, 'wayward philosopher' George John Cayley (1826–1878) this week, through his vibrant snapshot sketches at Algiers, 1874–5
Versand am 12 September 2023
Newly listed, this charming and quirky watercolour, showing a charitable home 'supported by voluntary contributions', captures an essence of Victorian England
Versand am 05 September 2023
This week we have added to our superb collection of drawings by master Henry William Burgess
Versand am 03 September 2023
Encyclopaedic subjects from early 19th-century Moravian, Leopold Billek
Versand am 31 August 2023
As 'back to school' approaches, we are lifting our spirits today with new works from our fantastic collection of mid-century modern textile designs
Versand am 27 August 2023
I love this vivid little evocation of Whitby in 1870, not the archetypal shoreline or gothic abbey but the smoking, red-roofed life of the place
Versand am 22 August 2023
Newly listed Indian mica paintings this week include this joyous depiction of an elephant and howdah
Versand am 20 August 2023
Continuing our Indian theme this week, we have a new collection of impressive large portrait drawings by Mumbai artist Prakash Sonawane
Versand am 17 August 2023
Fascinating to consider that Rembrandt had a collection of more than two dozen Mughal paintings, from which he made pen and ink studies
Versand am 15 August 2023
Had to post this late 19th-century view of our very own Saxon church here in Bradford on Avon
Versand am 13 August 2023
Our Red Poppy still life from our new Josef Herman OBE RA (1911–2000) collection embodies the artist's experimentation with pastel
Versand am 10 August 2023
From what at first appears an unassuming sketch unfolds a story of one of the 18th century's most important feminists and a home at the centre of an alternative, bohemian social milieu of Regency England
Versand am 08 August 2023
A wonderfully atmospheric watercolour by Henry Robertson ARE (1848–1930) showing fishing boats on the Stade beach at Hastings
Versand am 06 August 2023
William 'Quaker' Pegg (1775–1851) is regarded by many as being the finest flower painter to have ever worked in ceramics
Versand am 03 August 2023
Our Conway collection records a number of English country houses in the late 19th century—often buildings that have since been demolished or much changed
