LONDON.- Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions will host a sale of Fine Paintings on Wednesday 13th July 2016 (10am) at Donnington Priory, nr. Newbury. Estimates range from £1,000-£70,000 with an estimated total sale value of £600,000.

Highlighting the auction is E 44 by Polish artist, Wojciech Fangor, estimated at £50,000-70,000. This painting forms part of a group of works from The Collection of the late Clifford and Rosemary Ellis which also includes an interesting group of drawings by Walter Sickert. Both artists taught at one time at the Bath Academy of Art, based at Corsham Court, which was founded by Clifford Ellis in 1946.

The sale also includes a collection of ten works by the artist Fred Hall who is perhaps best known as a member of the Newlyn School of painters having settled in Cornwall in 1888. However, later in life, in 1911 he came to live in Speen, near Newbury where he remained until his death in 1948, aged 88. It was during this period that he came to know Harold Barton, senior partner at Dreweatt Watson and Barton, local agricultural auctioneers and land agents. Harold and his wife, Phyllis, became friends with Hall and helped to support him over the years. Harold would often take Fred on visits into the countryside, leaving him to paint for the day whilst he carried out his professional work. The majority of the present group of paintings were acquired directly from the artist and have remained in the family since. A number were exhibited at the Newbury District Museum in 1984.

Also estimated at £50,000-70,000 is Still life with spring flowers on a ledge by seventeenth century Flemish artist Jean-Michel Picart. Picart was born in Antwerp and worked in Paris, where he died in 1682. This still life painting is typically characteristic of Picart’s style, which merged the simplicity of Flemish realism with the extravagant, richly draped floral arrangements painted for Louis XIV.

Further Flemish highlights include an exquisite painting of Diana and Actaeon by Ludovicus Rijsbrack and Pieter Andreas Rijsbrack (fl. 1710-1720). This piece is part of the impressive selection of paintings for sale from Pen Moel, near Chepstow, estimated at £12,000-£18,000.

Other highlights include Carlos Nadal’s striking landscape painting of Switzerland, Villagio, estimated to reach £20,000- £30,000 and Edward William Stott’s notable painting, Maternity (est: £12,000-18,000). The latter is a tender depiction of rural England described in The Art Journal at the time as ‘a temperamental little picture; it yields pleasure.’

Ceasefire, an oil painting by Peter Howson, one of his generation’s leading figurative painters, is expected to realise £10,000 to £15,000. Howson’s visceral paintings deal with issues of war and human suffering. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 Birthday Honours’ for services to the visual arts. However, in 2014 the artist rejected the OBE on the grounds he no longer wanted to be part of the British establishment.