LONDON.- Roseberys 24 March auction of Paintings, Watercolours and Prints saw an eclectic mix of old masters, modern art and sculpture achieve top prices.
Roseberys Director and Head of Paintings Marcus Grey said: “It was a great result from a strong sale which showed buoyancy in the market for good quality works of art from all periods. It was a delight to put together such a diverse and exciting sale, and we are very pleased to see results reflecting the quality and rarity of some of pieces offered. ”
A Russian watercolour by the artist and military officer, Nikolai Nikolaevich Karazin, was the star of the show, selling for £12,054. The painting, depicting a falconer in a Moorish interior, was fiercely contested by two bidders on the telephone.
Karazin served as an officer in the Russian army between 1862 and 1871, when he retired from service having been awarded the Order of St. Vladimir. Despite leaving the army, Karazin established a career as a Russian military correspondent and illustrator, and later as a writer and illustrator. His work, both written and visual, was very much inspired by his extensive travel throughout Central Asia as part of a scientific exploration. The lot was estimated at £4,000-6,000. [Lot 459]
An untitled oil on canvas by the founder of Brazilian surrealism, Samson Modestovich Flexor, was the second highest performing in the sale. Despite his Brazilian heritage, Flexor was brought up in a wealthy Jewish family in Imperial Russia. He studied at the Odessa Art School in Bucharest, the Belgian Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts) in Brussels, and the Paris National School of Fine Arts (École Nationale des Beaux-Arts).
Having lived in Paris for much of his early life, he moved to Brazil during the 1940s where his focus moved from realism to abstraction. During the decades that followed he opened the first and a second abstractionist studio in Brazil, where he exhibited works by contemporary artists living and working in Brazil. In 2007 a centennial exhibition of 100 of his works were displayed in the National Art Museum of Moldova in Chișinău. Estimated at £1,000 -1,500, the painting sold for £8,856 to an international buyer on the telephone. [Lot 570]
An old master painting attributed to the famous British portrait painter George Romney came with a fantastic provenance. The lot, entitled Portrait of Mrs. Tickell, was accompanied by a letter from W. Roberts who compiled Romney’s Catalogue Raisonne. The letter confirms his ascertion that the painting was one of several attempts by Romney to paint Mrs. Tickell, second wife to Richard Tickell, in 1791. The oil on canvas had been in the family of the sitter since it was painted and the stunning work achieved £9,840, against an estimate of £1,000-1,500. [Lot 552]
Three works by one of India’s most celebrated painters and filmmakers, Maqbool Fida Husain, drew a large amount of pre-sale interest. The internationally recognised artist received recognition during his lifetime as a printmaker, photographer and director, first rising to fame in the 1940s as part of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. Engaged at a global level it was the aim of the group to encourage the Indian avant-garde.
Husain was not an uncontroversial figure, and in the years before his death in 2011 he came under attack from a number of Hindu organisations for his nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses. Hundreds of outstanding lawsuits led to a warrant for his arrest in 2007, and drove the artist in to live in self-imposed exile in Doha and London. Despite the scrutiny his work received in his later life, Husain was widely supported amongst his peers and 2008 saw him become the highest paid artist in India when his painting, Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12, 1971–72, sold at auction for US$1.6 million.
The three untitled works sold for £8,610, £3,690 and £6,150 respectively. [Lots 571-573]
A selection of 90 lots from the breath-taking Modern British Art collection of retired Londoner Tim Ellis, featured artwork by artists including Derrick Greaves, Henry Cliffe, Maurice Cockrill, Terry Frost and Dame Laura Knight, with lots ranging in estimate from £50-1500.
Ellis amassed his collection of hand selected works throughout his career in the City of London. Upon retirement he moved from the idyllic Georgian architecture of London’s West Square, where the collection had been a much loved part of his home, and made the difficult decision to disperse the artwork he collected. Tim Ellis said: “I didn’t buy for investment, or with a strategy: I’ve only acquired works that I have fallen in love with, that I couldn’t resist, that I felt I just had to live with. I haven’t even thought of myself as a collector.”
His refreshing approach to amassing this collection was clearly transferred to the buyers of items that were affordable additions to international collections. Most notably, an acrylic on canvas entitled Two Moroccan Women, which was purchased from the exhibition of the artist's work at James Hyman Fine Art, London in March 2003, sold for £1,660. [Lot 334]
