Showing posts with label miniatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miniatures. Show all posts

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Serendipity, a Silhouette, and Rex Whistler

Isn't it funny how things work out, more often than not, Dear Reader?


Last weekend I stopped into White Whale Limited, an antiques shop in the nearby town to Darlington House.  White Whale is a favorite destination of ours, as it is run by a family of antiques dealers who have marvelous "eyes" for goods in a number of the areas we collect, and the shop's inventory turns regularly.  It is a rare visit to White Whale that I leave its door without having made a purchase.  My purpose in visiting it on this particular trip was to examine a cache of miniature paintings and silhouettes that one of the dealers acquired at the Keith and Chippy Irvine sale held at Stair Galleries a month ago.  I suspected that such pictures would be on display, as I had seen the dealer at the Irvine sale buying lot after lot of them.


I had refrained from bidding on the pictures myself, as they were being sold in groups of four to ten at a time.  That meant that if one wished to acquire a particular picture in a lot, one was required to acquire all of the others, too.  Fortunately the dealer, who specializes in such miniature pictures (among other things), bought the groups she acquired to sell individually.

Among the pictures on view last weekend was a charming silhouette of a young English Regency dandy, circa 1820, whose curled hair, high collar, neckerchief, and button-festooned jacket were appealingly highlighted in gold paint.  I was drawn to the little picture because the sitter—identified on the reverse as a certain "Richard Wilkinson"—was handsome, the decoration was unusually well done, and it was in its original, undisturbed, period papier-mâché frame.


I had seen and admired Mr. Wilkinson's silhouette at the Irvine sale, but had refrained from bidding on it for the reason outlined above.  I was pleased to find it again at White Whale, and more than happy to find that this time it was available on its own.

In addition to finding the silhouette pleasing, Dear Reader, it also reminded me of the illustrations of the English artist Rex Whistler (1905-1944).  The silhouette's painted decoration had his deft and light touch, and his whimsicality, too.  I am not suggesting that I believe my little Regency fellow was painted by Rex Whistler.  I am merely saying that I was reminded of his work when I examined it.  Also that of his contemporaries William McLaren, who illustrated Beverly Nichols' books, and Cecil Beaton, who illustrated his own and others' books (when he wasn't engaged in the other creative activities for which he is justifiably celebrated).

And that is but one of the reasons I came home to Darlington House with Mr.Wilkinson's likeness in hand, where it joins other silhouettes in our collection.  We have hung it on a wall below another small potrait of another dandy of the same period that I also came away with that day, and which shall be the subject of another posting of mine at some point.


The blogosphere and media are abuzz with anticipation of the imminent publication of a book on Rex Whistler, titled In Search of Rex Whistler, His Life & His Work, by Hugh and Mirabel Cecil.  I know that I look forward to adding a copy of it to my cherished library of books about, by, or illustrated by the artist and his circle, a collection I have been accumulating for nigh on thirty years.

For those of my readers who are interested to learn more about the all-too-short life of the sublimely talented and prolific Rex Whistler, I encourage you to visit the information-packed blogs of The Devoted Classicist and Little Augury, where he and his fellow Bright Young Things have oft been the subject of their marvelous and erudite inquisitions.

Photographs by Boy Fenwick

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Is She Really Who and What She Is Purported To Be?

I have been interested in collecting antiques my entire life, but it was not until I graduated from college and was earning a decent salary that I was able to afford to indulge in such predilections.  One of the first antiques that I bought of any consequence was a miniature painting on ivory, dating from the 1830s and purported to be of the Empress Maria Anna of Austria.

Kaiserin Mariane von Oesterreich, ca. 1830s
School of (?) Moritz Michael Daffinger

I found the little painting almost thirty years ago while browsing in an antiques shop in suburban Washington, D.C., where I was looking for a wedding present for one of my college roommates.  I thought the picture was appealling, and its subject was pretty, and the price was right.  So I bought it.

The reverse of the miniature, showing
pencil inscription in German

The painting, in an ivory frame measuring 4 ½ by 5 ½ inches, depicts a young lady wearing a rose colored dress, an embroidered shawl, and a pretty bonnet decorated with flowers and lace typical of the 1830s.  It is signed "m. Daffinger."  On the reverse of the frame, written in pencil, is "Kaiserin Mariane v. Oesterreich."

Maria Anna, Empress and Archduchess consort of Austria
Queen consort of Hungary, Bohemia,
Lombardia and Venetia, ca. 1830s
by Johann Nepomuk Ender (1793-1854)
Collection Museo di Roma

Up until now I've never bothered to do any research on my little portrait.  I've always assumed it was a nice piece of tourist or commemorative art, depicting a young Queen of Austria.

When it came time for me to write this essay, however, I decided to see if I could find anything out about my picture.  After spending several hours browsing around the Internet, I learned rather a lot.  The painting is very probably of the young Empress Maria Anna (or Mariane) of Austria (1803-1884) and was possibly painted by an Austrian miniaturist named Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790-1849).

Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia and Family, ca. 1815
by Luigi Bernero (1775-1848)
Collection Royal Castle of Recconigi
Piedmont, Italy

Maria Anna Ricarda Carlotta Margherita Pia of Savoy, the likely subject of my miniature, was Empress and Archduchess consort of Austria, and Queen consort of Hungary, Bohemia, Lombardia, and Venetia.  She was born in 1803 in Rome and was the daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia (1759-1824) and the Archduchess Maria-Teresa of Austria-Este (1773-1832).

The hapless Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria
in ceremonial robes of the
Order of the Golden Fleece, 1847
by Leopold Kupelwieser (1796-1892)
Collection Schönbrunn Palace
Vienna, Austria

In 1831 Maria Anna married King Ferdinand V of Hungary (1793-1875), who later became Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.  Ferdinand was apparently severely epileptic, subject to as many as twenty fits a day, and was widely considered to be rather dim-witted.  Nonetheless, he ruled Austria as Emperor from 1836 until his forced abdication in 1848, when he was succeeded by his far more capable and far longer reigning nephew Franz Joseph (1830-1916).  Although Maria Anna and Ferdinand were supposedly devoted to each other, it is thought that Ferdinand was incapable of consummating their marriage, and no little princes or princesses were produced from their union.

A close-up of the painting

I suspect my miniature of the Empress was painted around the time of Ferdinand's ascension to the throne of Austria in 1836.

After Ferdinand's abdication, the royal couple remained in Austria until Ferdinand's death in 1875.  Maria Anna died in Prague in 1884 and is buried in Vienna, next to her husband.

Detail of the signature of m. Daffinger

Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790-1849), whose signature appears on my little portrait of Maria Anna, was an Austrian miniature painter and sculptor and is considered by those in the know to have been the leading miniaturist of the Biedermeier period.  According to what I've read, Daffinger was influenced by the English painter Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), with whom he studied during Lawrence's visit to Vienna in 1815.  Daffinger is known to have produced more than a thousand portraits, mostly miniatures, of members of the Austrian aristocracy.

A pre-Euro Austrian 20 schilling note
featuring Moritz Michael Daffinger

Revered in his native Austria, Daffinger's likeness appeared on the obverse of the Austrian twenty schilling banknote that circulated until the introduction of the Euro.  He also appeared on a stamp.

An Austrian stamp
featuring Moritz Michael Daffinger

In searching through images of Daffinger's work, I am not absolutely convinced that my little portrait was actually painted by him, even though it bears his signature.  I don't rule it out that he might have painted it, but—even though my miniature of the Empress is very skillfully painted—it isn't as technically refined as many of the works of Daffinger that I came across when researching this essay.

Countess Ferdinandine Karolyi,
née Princesse Kaunitz-Rietberg, ca. 1830
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
location unknown

It is possible that my miniature was painted by Daffinger.  It could also have been painted by a student of his, and he signed it.  It could also be a copy by someone of a miniature of the Empress that Daffinger painted.  It could even be an outright forgery.  I'd have to show it to an expert who is knowledgeable of Daffinger's work in order to determine whether or not he painted it.

Leutnant Botha, ca. 1830s
by Moritz Michael Daffinger

location unknown

Regardless of whether Herr Daffinger actually painted my little portrait or not, it is exceedingly well and finely painted, and I'm very happy to have it.  I appreciate it both for its prettiness and also because of my sentimental attachment to it as one of the first antiques I bought, many years ago.

An Austrian artillery officer
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
Collection of Elle Shushan

At least several dozen miniatures and little paintings by Daffinger have sold at auction in recent years, most of them in Europe but also some here in America, too.  Hammer prices realized range from a low of $750 to as much as $50,000, depending on the picture's quality, attribution, and subject matter.

Princess Melanie Metternich, ca. 1830s
by Moritz Michael Daffinger
sold at Christie's in 2007

Tell me, do you think my little portrait of the Empress Maria Anna was likely painted by Daffinger?

Photographs of Reggie's miniature by Boy Fenwick

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Mr. Travers, I Presume?

Continuing my series on miniatures, today I am posting about a recent addition to my collection.  It is a miniature portrait of an Englishman, painted on ivory.  Based on the sitter's clothing and the frame, which I believe is original, I date it to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.


The subject of the portrait is identified on the reverse as a "Mr. Travers," but that is all I know of him.  It is unsigned.  I found it in an antiques shop owned by a family of pickers in the town near Darlington.  We've had good luck with these dealers before, as they were the source of the painting of Robert Burns that I posted about last year, among other things that we now own.

I was attracted to the miniature of Mr. Travers because I thought it was exceedingly well painted.  I also liked the fact that the sitter is posed in an attenuated, three-quarter pose, and he is staring at us with deep blue eyes and with what appears to be an intelligent and clever expression.  His features are refined.  I encourage you, Dear Reader, to double click on the image to get a better view of how well he is painted.  I particularly like the artist's handling of Mr. Travers' stylishly tousled hair and rakish sideburns, so favored in the Regency.  He is dressed fashionably in the severe style favored by Beau Brummel.  The painting is framed in a black papier-mâché frame similar to the one on the miniature portrait of the China Trade merchant that I posted about in February, when I inaugurated this series.

For now I am displaying my miniature portrait of Mr. Travers on a simple easel on my bedroom chest of drawers at Darlington House, where I am pleased to see him watching me as I go about my daily routines.

Next: Is She Really Who and What She Is Purported To Be?

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Fine and Pleasing Silhouette

Over the years I have collected a fair number of silhouettes.  I like the way they look, they are readily available at antiques stores and fairs, and they are generally well priced.

For the possibly lone person reading this blog who is not familiar with the term, "silhouette" is the name for a type of highly graphic, representational image, most often (but not always) a portrait of a person in profile, where the subject is featureless and usually done in black (most often cut from paper or card) and mounted on a lighter background.  Silhouettes were a quick and inexpensive means of taking a sitter's likeness before the advent of photography, and were popular in America from the late-eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century.

I first started collecting silhouettes shortly after we acquired Darlington House, in the late 1990s.  Initially I was fairly indiscriminate in the silhouettes I bought, driven more by impulse than connoisseurship.  Over time, though, as I became more knowledgeable I also became more selective, focusing my buying on unusual and skillfully executed ones, in interesting period frames.

Although I still stop and admire silhouettes when I am out and about visiting dealers and shows, I only rarely buy them anymore.  I realized a number of years ago that I was on the verge of having more silhouettes than I knew what to do with.  As in all collecting, it is possible to find oneself with too much of a good thing if one isn't disciplined in one's buying.  So I put on the brakes and diverted my collecting attentions elsewhere.


One of the last silhouettes I bought is, I believe, the best in my collection.  If I had to choose only one of the silhouettes I own, this is the one I would reach for.  It is a beautifully and artistically done likeness of a young man that sits in an unusual and rare Federal-era frame.

I don't know who the artist was who cut the likeness (it is unsigned), but they were exceedingly skillfull at their craft, and the quality of their scissor-work is far superior to any other in my collection.  Whoever did it was a master (or mistress) at their art.  I bought the silhouette from an antiques dealer in western Massachusetts who said that he had bought it at a local auction.  That's all I know about its history or provenance.

Judging from the sitter's clothes and the style of the frame, I suspect that the silhouette was done in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the heyday of silhouettes' popularity.

A detail of the frame

The frame is an unusual one.  Most silhouettes that I see are framed in lacquered papier-mâché frames, similar to the frame of the miniature painting of what I suspect is a China Trade merchant that I posted about recently.  I've also seen silhouettes that are framed more conventionally, in square or rectangular wood or metal gilt frames.  I'm not aware of seeing one framed as this young man is, though, in an entirely wood, flat frame made of mahogany and decorated with an inlay border around the perimeter.  Given its quality I suspect the frame was made by a cabinetmaker, which would explain why it has a particularly fine hanging hook on it as opposed to a more conventional and plainer hanging ring seen on picture frames of this period.  The frame appears to be in its original, untouched finish.  Although I think it would look better if I had it refinished—the surface has darkened and dulled considerably over time—I am going to leave it just the way it is, for reasons that are well known to those of us who watch Antiques Road Show with any regularity.

All in all I am quite pleased to have this little silhouette, and I feel most fortunate to own it.

Tell me, do you own any silhouettes?

Photographs by Boy Fenwick

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Reggie Out & About: The Charles Plante Exhibit and Sale at Mallett New York

Last evening Boy and I attended an opening reception at Mallett, Inc., in New York for an exhibition and sale of neoclassical period drawings and watercolors assembled by Charles Plante Fine Arts of London.  For those of my readers who may not be familiar with Mallett, it is a London-based dealer of very fine English antiques and decorative arts of the 18th century and Regency periods.  Founded in 1865 and with showrooms in London and NewYork, Mallett is one of the oldest and most illustrious of such dealers and is patronized by wealthy collectors, royals, and museums.  It doesn't get any richer, exquisite, or more fabulous than Mallett.

The front of the invitation to the Charles Plante Fine Arts
exhibit at Mallett New York

Charles Plante is a London-based specialist dealer in European and American watercolors and drawings of architecture, gardens, interiors, and design of the neoclassical period, circa 1760-1840.  He has brought several hundred of his works to Mallett's gallery in New York, where they are displayed beautifully throughout the gallery's first-floor rooms, hung salon style.

Mr. Plante standing amongst his delightful
framed pictures on exhibit at Mallett New York

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Mr. Plante specializes in dealing in diminutively scaled works featuring a wide variety of subjects, and his pictures are beautifully framed using period or period-reproduction frames as well as period-appropriate, beautifully done French and eglomise matting.

As readers of this blog well know, Reggie has a weakness for little things, and so he was delighted to find himself at Mr. Plante's opening reception at Mallett.  While there I had the chance to meet and speak with Mr. Plante and learned that he is an American by birth, educated both here and in England, and has made his home and career in England since 1988.  He is passionate about his profession and the works he deals in and was quite jolly and pleasant when we spoke with him.

The interior of the Charles Plante Fine Arts gallery in London
Image courtesy of same

Works on display at the Plante exhibit at Mallett are priced very attractively, starting as low as $875 for a tiny picture and ranging up to $32,000 for the generously scaled watercolor featured on the exhibit's invitation, shown at the top of this post.  Most of what is on display at the show is very reasonably priced (as these things go) in the $1,000-$3,000 range.  Tempting, indeed!

The invitation resting on the base of a
marble and gilt bronze candlestick
at Mallett New York

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Reggie recommends that you, Dear Reader, consider visiting Mallett during the show of Charles Plante's pictures, which runs through March 31st.  He is confident that you will be enchanted by it, as he was.  Be forewarned, however: given how charming and attractively priced Mr. Plante's pictures are, you may well feel compelled to buy something if you go, as Reggie was sorely tempted to last evening.

But you'd better get there soon, as the exhibit will likely sell out quickly.

Charles Plante Fine Arts at
Mallett, Inc.
929 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10021
(212) 249-8783
www.mallettantiques.com

Please note: Reggie has received nothing in return for writing this review (except several glasses of champagne and a nibble or two at the reception), nor does he expect to.  He is writing it solely for the edification and pleasure of his readers.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

A Pleasing Portrait in Miniature

Reggie has always had a weakness for little things.  By that he means that he is drawn to diminutively scaled versions of what one usually sees on a larger, or life-size scale.  It can be a painting, a piece of furniture, a topiary, or a book—pretty much anything, really.  It could be something that was made "in little" as a keepsake, or as a toy for a child, or just because.  And Reggie is not alone in having a fondness for such things, either, at least in his own immediate family where he and his sisters, Hermione and Camilla, share a similar propensity.

Over the next several months I plan on posting examples of some of the diminutively scaled pieces that we have at Darlington House.  Initially I will concentrate on paintings, other works of art, and objets de vertu, and then I'll see where it goes from there.


The subject of today's post is a miniature oval portrait of a young man painted sometime during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, a period where I focus much of my collecting.  I came across the portrait at an antiques show in Rhinebeck, New York, eight or nine years ago.  I was immediately drawn to it and had one of those visceral, I must have it reactions that you, Dear Reader, will be familiar with if you read a recent post I wrote about my acquisition of several Chinese export porcelain plates at this year's New York Ceramics Fair.


The subject of the portrait is unidentified—just as the young lady was in the photograph that I recently posted of a forgotten ancestress of mine.  While I have always assumed that the portrait I own is American in origin, in studying it while writing this essay I now think that it might well have been painted in China by a Chinese artist and that the sitter may well be an American merchant who was engaged in the China Trade.  Whoever painted it was clearly trained in his craft and extremely talented at it.  The likeness is painted with delicate, nearly microscopic brush strokes on ivory in an attenuated, almost Mannerist style.  Over the years the painting's red pigment, the most transitory of all pigments, has faded, and the picture now has an ethereally blue cast to it, reminiscent of Picasso's blue period or certain Medieval paintings.  Well, not really, but you get the references I'm sure.

The frame measures 5" high and 4¼" wide

The painting is framed in its original black lacquered papier-mâché frame, with a gilt brass hanging ring at the top and a small spray of cast oak leaves and an acorn.  Just as the frame is severely and plainly black, so is the sitter's jacket and hair, which is styled in a jaunty pompadour hairstyle fashionable at the time.  He wears a high-necked white collar encircled by an expertly tied neckerchief, and his black jacket and white shirting sets off his pale, refined features perfectly, as does the painting's gray background.

The miniature portrait is, indeed, a most pleasing one and portrays an interesting and attractive subject, beautifully and subtly executed.  I am most fortunate to have it.

Photography by Boy Fenwick
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