Books and Art

Books, Art of art: literature, music, dance, visual arts

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Orphan of Mars. Joanna Cannan. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., (1930). First edition stated. Original dust jacket.

World War One themed novel of "the educated civilian who dashed to the Front without pausing to ask whether he was too good for cannon-fodder - and returned to live among those who had grown fat through the asking".

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Portrait of Mrs Kirkwood (1908). George Henry (Scottish, 1858-1943). Oil on canvas.

Henry's importance consists in his influence in the Glasgow school in the direction of richer and more decorative color. In addition to genre and landscape, he also painted portraits, more distinguished by technical ability than by rendition of character. He was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy (1902) and an associate of the Royal Academy.

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Lindsey Jones and John Eirich in Rockefellers, Dance Heginbotham, Harkness Dance Festival, March 2018. © Julie Lemberger.

John Eirich and Jones are the space-age couple: both wearing accessories that look as if they are made of tin foil – he a tie, she a bow on her poofy pink cocktail dress. The couple allude to automated, de-personalized aspects of life

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Portrait of Mrs. Mary Pemberton, half-length (c.1780). George Romney (English, 1734-1802). Oil on canvas.

The sitter was born in 1756 and was the daughter of Thomas Wale and Louisa Rodolphina von Rahten. In 1780 she married Thomas Pemberton at Shelford and lived at Shelworth.

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K. J. Obratil bookplate. Artist: Alfred Liebing.

A woman leans on a large book while standing on on oversized man’s head. Vines encircle all.

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Bacchanal (1896). Raffaello Sorbi (Italian, 1844-1931). Oil on canvas.

Joyous skipping, exuberant dancing and cheerful models are ever present in Sorbi’s high spirted scenes of Easter processions and harvest dances. These were idealised interpretations of country life so sought after by the artist's many admirers and collectors. Such high spirits are translated into a classical setting in the present lot. Ladies skip with tambourines and cymbals and making merry music whilst the bacchanalia ritual gets underway. A garlanded impish Bacchus takes his place a little further back, riding a donkey in the midst of the procession. The raised Thyrsus symbolise hedonism, prosperity and pleasure.

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Kate Bogucharskaia with architecture in “Jet Set Bohème” for Madame Figaro, February 2019. Photograph by Stefan Dotter.

“La robe glamour. Robe en tulle brodé, Longchamp. Collier Ciro pour Burma.”

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Anne Estelle Rice, Café d'Harcourt (1907). John Duncan Fergusson (Scottish, 1874-1961). Oil on canvas.

The painting depicts the beautiful and talented Anne Estelle Rice, John Duncan Fergusson's muse and companion from his early years in Paris. Rice gazes out with dark enigmatic eyes and the suggestion of a welcoming smile spreading across her red lips. The intimacy of the expression and the relaxed pose are indicative of the closeness between the model and the artist, a record of an intense romance. The elegance and energetic joi de vie of Paris at this time are captured in the shimmering refractions of tone and flashes of deep colour. Fergusson had taken the glamorous spirit of Manet's milliners and models but expressed the modernity of his vision of Parisian fashion in the expressive brush stokes and bold colouring.

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Black Money. Ross Macdonald. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, [1966]. First edition. Original dust jacket.

When Lew Archer is hired to get the goods on the suspiciously suave Frenchman who's run off with his client's girlfriend, it looks like a simple case of alienated affections. Things look different when the mysterious foreigner turns out to be connected to a seven-year-old suicide and a mountain of gambling debts.

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Edith Matthews, née Meredith. James Bolivar Manson (English, 1879-1945). Oil on canvas. Towner.

Manson married Lilian Beatrice Laugher, a violinist, and they moved to the Latin Quarter in Paris, renting a room for £1 a month and economising in a shared studio with Charles Polowetski, Bernard Gussow and Jacob Epstein, who became a lifelong friend and with whom he studied at the Académie Julian, still dominated by the Impressionists' enemy, Adolphe Bouguereau; occasionally Jean-Paul Laurens tutored.

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Giulia Maenza writing with architecture in “Work in Progress” for ELLE Italia, November 2020. Photograph by Laura Sciacovelli.

“Cappotto di twill techico (4,900 euro) e maxi bag di pelle con doppio manico (1,990 euro), tutto Balenciaga; bombetto Melegari; guanti Sermoneta.”

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Cleopatra (c.1663). Cesare Gennari (Italian, 1637-1688). Oil on canvas.

Cesare moved to Bologna in 1643 on his uncle Guercino's instigation, moving into the latter's home and entering his workshop with his painter brother Benedetto Gennari. This painting was executed by Cesare in the workshop, however, some critics suggested that Guercino may have had a hand in its execution.

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The Forbidden Trail (Melody Lane Mystery #2). Lilian Garis. Grosset & Dunlap, 1933. First edition. Original dust jacket.

Carol observes several foreigners in town and that at least one of them seems to be trying to communicate with Veronica. Meanwhile, Carol learns that Veronica has inherited the cave on the Forbidden Trail from her father, who is missing and presumed dead. Veronica's father had said that the cave held the secret to a great scientific discovery. When Carol receives a warning message not to interfere in Veronica's affairs, she knows that something sinister is afoot. Carol does not understand what is going on, but she knows that the answer to the riddle lies in the cave on the Forbidden Trail.

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Portrait of a Lady, bust-length, as Berenice, wife of Ptolomy III of Egypt. Gortzius Geldorp (Flemish, 1553-1616). Oil on panel.

According to legend Berenice promised to sacrifice her hair to Venus if the gods brought her husband, Ptolemy III, back safely from war. As he was delivered unharmed, Berenice cut off her hair and placed it in Venus's temple as promised but the hair disappeared. The belief is that it became a constellation in the night sky, known to this day as Coma Berenices, or Berenice's Hair.

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Ballet British Columbia in Bill, March 2018. © Cindi Wicklund.

Bill was a dramatic gearshift. Sharon Eyal’s piece for Batsheva Dance Company went for quirky with a series of solos by dancers in skintight flesh-toned bodysuits – ricocheting around the stage with exaggeratedly cartoonish, jitteringly strange movements, like contemporary dance Minions, or malfunctioning androids.

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Portrait of Leonowa Sternbachowa (1904). Stanislaw Wyspianski (Polish, 1869-1907). Pastel.

Wyspiański was a Polish playwright, painter and poet, as well as interior and furniture designer. A patriotic writer, he created a series of symbolic, national dramas within the artistic philosophy of the Young Poland Movement.

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Wilhelm Hoffmann / Dresden (1896). Otto Fischer (German, 1870-1947). Poster. Printer: Wilhelm Hoffman, Dresden.

The printer advertises his shop as "an art institute for modern posters," and the designer gives him the image to go with it—that of an artisan lithographer, pipe and all, submitting a proof to the critical eye of a female customer. It's obviously a high-class printing establishment. Fischer was born in Leipzig and worked as a painter, decorator, and lithographer; he earned an honorary title of professor at the Dresden Academy.