JOHN HENRY AMSHEWITZ, R.B.A. | DEATH'S ARREST

Private Collection, Switzerland 

Sale: Christie's, London, April 16, 2014, lot 164, illustrated

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Sarah Briana Amshewitz, The Paintings of J.H. Amshewitz, R.B.A., London, 1951, p. 3

John Henry Amshewitz was a precocious talent and in 1902 won a scholarship to the Royal Academy schools, where he studied under John Singer Sargent, Sir George Clausen and Solomon J. Solomon. Like his contemporaries John Byam Shaw and Frank Cadogan Cowper, Amshewitz won a number of important civic commissions, including four fresco murals for the Centenary Memorial at the Liverpool City Hall in 1907 and a large mural for the Royal Exchange, London in 1910. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, including the present work, Death’s Arrest, shown in 1912. The enigmatic subject of this large and theatrical canvas shows a young troubadour pursued by the figure of Death. Accompanying him and oblivious to the singer’s plight are a court jester, Cupid, and a beautiful maiden in fantastic costume who appears to glide mysteriously along the bottom of the canvas. The setting is the garden of an imaginary coastal villa. There is nothing to indicate that Amshewitz was acquainted with the contemporary American painter and illustrator Maxfield Parrish, but their large canvases share numerous affinities, including the use of distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.