Stories & Videos

Respected Reproductions: Highlights from Old Master Copies Online

Launch Slideshow

The upcoming auction Old Master Copies Online: Imitation & Influence includes works by followers and students of some of the great old master painters, from Rembrandt to Velázquez. For centuries, copying existing works was a fundamental part of artistic training, in which a student learned the methods of their master. Click ahead to see highlights from the auction.

Old Master Copies Online: Imitation & Influence
Online | 17 - 30 October 2017
 

Respected Reproductions: Highlights from Old Master Copies Online

  • Follower of Hans Holbein the Younger, King Henry VIII.
    Estimate £6,000–8,000.
    This work is based on a portrait of King Henry with his third wife Jane Seymour and his parents that Holbein produced for Whitechapel Palace. The original painting was sadly lost forever when the palace, then considered the largest in Europe, burned down in 1968 when a laundry maid left washing drying in front of an open fire.

    Share
  • Frans van Mieris the Younger, Lady and Cavalier. Estimate £6,000–8,000.
    This composition is based on a prototype by the artist’s grandfather, Frans van Mieris the Elder, now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace. Frans the Elder's painting is simpler, focussing on the finely dressed young man being plied with wine by a smiling young maid-servant, set against a plain black background.

    Share
  • Circle of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Portrait of Rembrandt's mother. Estimate £8,000–12,000.
    A copy of a lost Rembrandt painting that can probably be dated to circa 1631. The number of extant copies of this subject is testament to the popularity and influence of the lost original. Gerrit Dou, for instance, painted a number of oval pictures of the same model, with identical expression and dress.

    Share
  • Follower of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Frans Francken I.
    Estimate £6,000–8,000.
    Together with Marten de Vos and Frans Floris, Frans Francken I and his brother Ambrosius I were among the most important painters in Catholic Antwerp during the Counter-Reformation. This work is a copy of Rubens's original portrait of the artist in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier.

    Share
  • Follower of Pietro Longhi, The Quack Doctor.
    Estimate £4,000– 6,000.
    Pietro Longhi was one of the most celebrated painters of 18th-century Venice. His paintings and drawings provide a vivid record of Venetian daily activities of both the working classes and the aristocracy. This painting is a copy after Longhi's signed and dated 1757 original canvas in the Ca'Rezzonico, Venice.

    Share
  • After Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino, The rapture of Saint Paul. Estimate £4,000–6,000.
    Domenichino was born and trained in Bologna, before settling in Rome and then Naples. He was strongly influenced by the works of Annibale Carracci and Raphael and became known for the classical ideal of his figurative compositions, and for the naturalistic approach to landscape painting. He was reportedly poisoned by his arch-nemesis, the Neapolitan painter Giovanni Lanfranco, in Naples after fifteen years of rivalry. 

    Share
  • Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, The Lady with a Fan.
    Estimate £4,000–6,000.
    As court painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Diego Velázquez created consummate portraits of the Spanish royal family and the high nobility. The Lady with a Fan is one of his most famous and enigmatic portraits. Another version of this painting by Velázquez is in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire and Chatsworth House. The identity of the sitter has never been securely identified, but more recent studies have suggested that the sitter may be the Frenchwoman, Marie de Rohan, the duchess of Chevreuse. She is dressed here in the French fashion of the late 1630s, and is known to have been living in exile in Madrid under the protection of Philip IV of Spain.

    Share
  • Frans Wouters, after Sir Peter Paul Rubens, The Sacrifice of the Old Covenant. Estimate £3,000–4,000.
    The original version of this modello by Rubens, which was used as a cartoon for a tapestry in the cycle known as The Triumph of the Eucharist, was destroyed by fire in 1731. A modello is a preparatory study for a work of art or architecture. Rubens' modelli in particular have been perennially prized for their freedom of execution in the expression of his ideas, and were widely copied by his pupils and contemporaries.

    Share
/
Close