Antiques Trade Gazette 51


being rekindled?


early 1960s the picture belonged to the London art dealer Charles Jerdein, who did much to revive the Alma-Tadema market; and a decade later it was acquired by Allen Funt, the American television personality who created and hosted the long-running show Candid Camera. The current vendor purchased the work in 1973 from London’s Maas Gallery. A pair of determined bidders on the phone pushed bidding beyond the £400,000-600,000 estimate with one, a European private buyer, securing the piece for £820,000. The highlight among the sporting


paintings was A Winner at Epsom by Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959). The artist depicted his own mare Winter Rose in the winner’s enclosure, being unsaddled after her race. Munnings clearly enjoyed painting this scene as he experimented with the moment on numerous occasions, although only this example and another exist on this scale. Measuring 3ft 4in x 3ft 11in (1 x 1.19m), the oil on canvas last appeared at auction in a Sotheby’s New York sale in 1993 when it sold to the vendor for $320,000 (£210,526). This time it sold just below estimate for £480,000 in the room to an adviser on behalf of a private collector, a relatively poor return for the vendor. The other version, considered more


including fellow classicist Alma-Tadema. On a large scale measuring 4ft 2in x


3ft 1in (1.28m x 95cm) and preserved in its original frame, the oil on canvas last appeared at auction in 1974, when it entered the Forbes Magazine Collection. Estimated here at £1.2m-1.5m, it only just managed to find a buyer, selling to the US trade for £1m on the phone. In a Rose Garden was the only work


by Alma-Tadema consigned to the sale and did not drum up the same level of interest as some of his other works have recently, yet Christie’s modest £400,000-600,000 estimate suggested that they did not expect it to either. Small and measuring 14 x 20in (37 x 50cm), the oil on panel was painted in 1890, two years after the artist created a sensation at the Royal Academy with The Roses of Heliogabulus, in which he depicted the debauched Roman Emperor attempting to smother his unsuspecting guests in petals released from an awning; the painting, formerly in the collection of American millionaire Fred Koch, sold at Christie’s in 1993 for £1.5m. The latest offering was a lighter-


hearted subject along the same theme showing two girls playing with rose


Above: In a Rose Garden by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema – £820,000.


petals on a marble bench, into which is set a bronze relief depicting the ancient manufacture of scent. It had an extensive and diverse


provenance dating from its acquisition in 1915 by Viscount Leverhulme, the soap magnate who founded the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight. By the


refined, was formerly at the Los Angeles Turf club and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1955. It sold at Sotheby’s, New York in 1998 for $1.7m against a similar estimate. A Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones


(1833-98) painting last seen over 110 years ago fetched its top estimate of £320,000, selling to a UK private buyer.


continued on page 52


Above: Red Nude by Ceri Richards, 1956, 3ft x 4ft (91cm x 1.22m) oil on canvas – £80,000 from Martin Tinney Gallery.


Getting richer with Richards


Anna Brady reports


LAST May, the sale of Interior with piano, woman and child painting for £220,000 (plus premium) at Sotheby’s to London’s Richard Green gallery took prices for the work of Ceri Richards (1903-71) to a new level. There has been a revived interest in


the Welsh artist since his centenary in 2003, marked by numerous exhibitions and the publication of Mel Gooding’s book, the rising value of his work also due in part to the wider uptake of the Modern British market over the past decade. Naturally given his specialism in


Welsh artists, Cardiff dealer Martin Tinney has dealt in Richards’ work since he opened the Martin Tinney Gallery in 1992 and from June 21 to July 14 he will hold his fifth Ceri Richards exhibition at 18 St Andrew’s Crescent. Tinney has worked closely with the


estate for a number of years and the 50-odd works in this show have mainly come from the estate – this is the first time that many have been offered for sale. The exhibition brings together


constructions, oils, collages, watercolours and drawings, produced from the 1930s – the earliest being an unusual 1932 portrait of the artist’s wife – until his death in 1971, but the majority date to the 1940s. Richards was born in Dunvant near


Swansea and trained at Swansea School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. An accomplished pianist, music, alongside poetry and nature, was a central theme in his work, most evident in his series based on Debussy’s music, his Beethoven Suite and the numerous depictions of a girl at a piano, of which there are a number in this exhibition. Prices range from £3500 to £85,000. Contact 029 2064 1411 www.artwales.com


galleries@ antiquestradegazette.com


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