LONDON.- The third iteration of London Art Week Winter opens 1-6 December 2019, featuring more than 30 selling exhibitions and auctions, and presenting the inaugural London Art Week Winter Symposium at the National Gallery. Specialist dealers present academic discoveries and carefully curated, themed presentations spanning 5,000 years of art in all its varied forms.

An exceptional discovery is offered by Callisto Fine Arts of an early signed work by Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), the first woman to make a living in her own right as an artist, and with her own studio. Previously unpublished, the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine is painted in oil on copper, and likely dates prior to 1577; it was probably destined for the private devotional use of a sophisticated patron. The work is a major addition to the catalogue of Lavinia Fontana, and will be published in the forthcoming book on this special artist by Vera Fortunati.

Another female pioneer was the late 18th-century celebrity actress, poet, novelist and writer of feminist tracts, Mrs Mary Robinson (1758-1800), who has recently been identified by Ben Elwes Fine Art as the subject of a portrait by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), the Boston-born portraitist and history painter, dating from when he was working in London. Mary Robinson was also a fashion icon and courtesan, her many liaisons included George, Prince of Wales, later Prince Regent.

Peggy Guggenheim’s short-lived and little known modern art gallery in Cork Street, London - Guggenheim Jeune, which closed just prior to the outbreak of World War II - is celebrated at Ordovas. The exhibition showcases her parallel collecting interests in Abstraction and Surrealism through a display of works by Jean (Hans) Arp and Yves Tanguy. At Laocoon Gallery is XX: The Female Gender in Italian XXth Century Italian Art showing the work of women artists, and illustrating how women were depicted in art during the period.

An exquisite early Pre-Raphaelite painting by the tragically short-lived Adolphus Madot (1833?–1861) has been rediscovered by Bagshawe Fine Art. The finely observed Shakespearian scene, Slender’s Wooing of Ann Page from The Merry Wives of Windsor, was bought at the 1857 Royal Academy exhibition by British Prime Minister William Gladstone, and demonstrates just how accomplished Madot had already become. Had he lived, he would surely have become an artist of considerable reputation.

Exhibition themes during London Art Week Winter 2019 encompass a breathtaking variety of mediums and eras: 18th century romantic landscapes at Karen Taylor Fine Art and John Mitchell Fine Paintings; the influence of Ottoman art on European artists and ceramicists at Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd, and Raccanello LePrince; British art at Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd and Bagshawe Fine Art; Anglo-American paintings at Ben Elwes Fine Art; 100 Drawings and Watercolours at Guy Peppiatt Fine Art and Stephen Ongpin Fine Art; sculpture and antiquities at Daniel Katz Gallery, Ariadne Galleries and M & L Fine Art, and pietre dure marble and mosaics is the subject at Brun Fine Art.

Singular exhibitions of particular note can be found at Sam Fogg, who in collaboration with Galerie Caylus of Madrid presents rarely seen medieval works in Retablos: Spanish Paintings from the 14th to 16th Centuries; at Olivier Malingue Ltd is L’Empreinte, a group exhibition including works by Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Yves Klein, Man Ray and Ed Ruscha; at S. Franses is Giant Leaf Tapestries of the Renaissance, and photography is the focus at Tomasso Brothers Fine Art where a special display of large scale C-prints by Massimo Listri of magnificent museum interiors is combined with complementary sculptures.

Other London Art Week participants include Lampronti Gallery, Galleria Carlo Virgilio & C., Charles Beddington Ltd, Benappi Fine Art, Colnaghi, Mullany Haute Epoque Fine Art, Trinity Fine Art, alongside the Old Master and classic auctions at Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. A schedule of talks can be found on the website.