Painting Through Time, Exploring 14 Works Over 5 Centuries

Dutch School, circa 1630, A portrait of a young boy, full-length, wearing a green hat, coral beads and a white frill collar, and holding a baton and a hobby horse.
Estimate £8,000–12,000

From the mid-16th century until the late 19th or early 20th century, young boys in the Western world were unbreeched and wore gowns or dresses until an age that varied between two and eight. There are often clues however that allude to the child's gender - in this case the hobby horse, a toy that at the time was only considered appropriate for boys.

Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem, A rocky southern landscape with two peasant women and their flock and cattle halting near a stream.
Estimate £3,000–5,000

It is very likely Berchem travelled to Italy, even if not confirmed by existing documents, due to the many paintings he executed in warm tones that evoke the Italian countryside, such as the present work.

Hendrik Van Minderhout, An aerial view of Ostend, with the Fort Saint Philippe and shipping on the Slijkens Sluice, and figures in the foreground.
Estimate £20,000–30,000

This work shows an aerial view of the city of Ostend in approximately 1675. The Fort of Saint Philippe, which guarded the locks of the canal between Bruges and Ostend, is visible just left of centre with its crown-shaped supporting fort in front, and the sea and sand dunes are visible in the background behind the city. These fortifications were strengthened by Don Carlos de Gurrea a Borja, the Duke of Villa Hermosa in 1676. Ostend, which is strategically positioned on the North Sea coast, was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Eighty Years’ War.

Jan Peeter Verdussen, A military encampment, depicting the Household Cavalry of the Duke of Savoy (1744-1745) with a standard bearer and horses by a tent.
Estimate £3,000–5,000

Jan Peter Verdussen was appointed court painter by King Charles Emmnauel III of Sardinia in 1743. There he was to paint scenes glorifying the House of Savoy for the king's villa. Battle scenes and encampments therefore became rather a speciality of Verdussen's, and he rarely swayed from these military subject matters. This painting depicts the household cavalry of the Duke of Savoy going about their daily routine.

Carle van Loo, A nymph at her bath.
Estimate £8,000–12,000


Carle van Loo was the most famous member of a celebrated artistic dynasty. In fact, by the mid-18th century, he was arguably the leading painter of his generation in Paris, highly acclaimed for his tremendous skill in depicting a wide range of subjects: portraits, mythological, genre and history paintings, as well as religious works. Gabriel Saint-Aubin, another well-regarded painter in Paris during the 18th century, described this painting as 'A Nymph at her Bath. A painting made precious by its lightness of touch, silvery colouring and free draughtsmanship'.

Luigi Mayer, A view of Tyndareus from the South, with figures by a sarcophagus and fragments of sculpture, the ruins of a temple (formerly identified as that of Castor and Pollux) beyond; and A view of one of the great caverns of Tyndareus, with figures descending and a man drawing.
Estimate £4,000–6,000

This pair was commissioned by Sir Robert Ainslie (1730-1812) as part of a series of twelve paintings which record his travels in the Levant, his time in Constantinople, where he was Ambassador from 1775, and his return to England. They were the tenth and the last in the series (as the numbers in the lower left indicate). Tyndareus, or modern day Tindari, was part of the last Greek colonies in Sicily founded in 396 BC by Dionysius I.

Dominic Serres, Figures on a mediterranean quayside with shipping beyond.
Estimate £10,000–15,000

Dominic Serres was born in Auch, Gascony, and only came to England as a Prisoner of War in 1752, having been captured at sea. He soon made an important acquaintance in Charles Brooking, the leading shipping painter of the time, who gave him some instruction in marine painting. Serres was to specialise in this particular genre for the rest of his life: he was retained by George II as official naval artist to the Crown from 1780.

C. John M. Whichelo, A moonlit view over the bay of Naples, with the eruption of Vesuvius on 22 February 1822.
Estimate £6,000–8,000

John Whichelo's earliest work was of a purely topographical character, and some of his drawings were engraved for Wilkinson's Londina Illustrataand Brayley's Beauties of England and Wales. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1810, sending chiefly marine views, and for a few years held the appointment of marine painter to King George III.

Jean-Baptiste Gallet, A still life with branches of cherry blossom, periwinkle and viburnum together with a butterfly
Estimate £3,000–5,000

Jean-Baptiste Gallet was born in Lyon in 1820 and studied from 1834-40 under the tutelage of Augustin-Alexandre Thierriat at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, where he enrolled using the name 'Gallay'. Like his master, he specialised in painting flower and fruit still life paintings, and he exhibited from 1842-43 in Lyon and in Paris from 1847 until his early death in 1848.

Jodocus Sebastiaen Van Den Abeele, Rome, a view of the Campidoglio.
Estimate £4,000–6,000

As with many other painters travelling to Italy, Abeele was interested in antiquities, but also in representing the contemporary Roman way of life. This view is taken from the portico of Palazzo dei Conservatori, in front of the stand of a peddler whose merchandise lies on the ground. The Aracoeli church and a peak of Palazzo Nuovo are visible, as well as ancient Roman statues such as the two Dioscuri on horseback, a statue of the roman goddess Minerva, and a stone carved eagle lying on the ground.

Otto Petersen Balle, A young Danish girl hanging up linen by a blooming chestnut tree in the garden of the vicarage in Aversi.
Estimate £800–1,200

The work of Otto Balle was influenced by the Danish landscape painters Peter Christian Skovgaard, Vilhelm Kyhn and Johan Thomas Lundbye. He was an art critic as well as an artist, and a member of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation. His idyllic country scenes, such as this view of a girl in a garden, are deliberately detached from reality and free from social engagement.

Alméry Lobel-Riche, Les bouquinistes du passage.
Estimate £2,000–3,000

Alméry Lobel-Riche was a French painter, engraver and illustrator known for explicit erotic subjects. He illustrated novels and poems by writers such as Baudelaire, Verlaine, Maupassant and Flaubert. The present work is a narrative scene depicting an urban way of life, with a characteristic Parisian passage (arcade) where antiquarians are selling books.

Oseph Victor Communal, A German searchlight behind Les Éparges battlefield.
Estimate £800–1,200

Joseph-Victor Communal spent most of his life in Chambery, in Savoy, and was strongly tied to the community of mountain painters in that region. Largely self-taught, he won a number of artistic prizes and awards and regularly exhibited in the Paris Salon from 1910. This work is reminiscent of his years as a soldier during World War I. Les Éparges was an extremely long and violent battle between the French and Germans in 1914-15 to secure the little village of Les Éparges, situated in a crucial strategic position. Communal depicts it using a palette knife to create large fields of colour with a modern and captivating effect.