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Bloomsbury Auctions : Oil Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Prints: Friday 27th October 2006: Sale 588

London: Bloomsbury Auctions, 2006

Auction catalogue, near fine condition, glossy pictorial card covers, 148 pages, 908 lots, illustrated in colour and b/w, -----------Sale catalogue for Bloomsbury Auctions, Bloomsbury House, 24 Maddox Street, London W1S 1PP, on Friday 27th October 2006-------------- Several lots from Raine, Countess Spencer, Princess Diana’s stepmother. Of particular interest is a bust length profile portrait in pencil of the late Princess’s great grandfather, Charles Robert, 6th Earl Spencer KG, Groom-in-Waiting and Vice Chamberlain to King Edward VII. This handsome, signed pencil drawing (lot 206) by the Irish artist Sir William Orpen, was bought from a New York dealer and added to the family collection in 1932 and was a study for the formal oil painting of the Earl which still hangs in Althorp, the childhood home of Princess Diana. This drawing was given to the Countess by her late husband Edward John, 8th Earl Spencer and is estimated £3000-5000. Other lots in the sale from Raine, Countess Spencer are six watercolour views by Villiers David (lots 96-101), a friend of the Countess who gave these to her as a present. Two large gouache and watercolour pictures by the renowned marine artist Jack Spurling, have already aroused considerable interest amongst afecionados. Both are technically first class, La Hogue (lot 229) with the artist’s instructions regarding reproduction, carries an estimate of £5500-7500, while Mermerus (lot 230) is estimated at £5000-7000. A very rare, museum quality group of neo classical drawings for funerary monuments by the Royal Academician John Bacon (lot 12), bears direct and favourable comparison to a group in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Superbly executed working drawings of this calibre rarely come onto the market, and this group is estimated to fetch £3000-5000. This sale also boasts a substantial number by Gillray, Rowlandson, Blunt, Cruikshank etc all with the collector’s ink-stamp. Particularly important are the two beautiful mezzotint prints of Charles James Fox and William Pitt (lots 353 –354) both estimated £300-400.The magnificent Piranesi prints. Jack Spurling ship paintings (lots 229 and 230) made a healthy £5400 and £5000 respectively. The 18th Century Prints section showed some solid prices; lot 322 Le Pitture Antiche del Sepolcro de' Nasonii nella Villa Flaminia by Pietro Santi Bartoli (lot 322), sold for £1300 over three times the estimate. The magnificent first state Night-Blowing Cereus for Dr Thornton's Temple of Flora which appeared on the front cover of the catalogue, made £4400 comfortably over double its estimate. Another household name in the print section was that of Audubon, the American naturalist and artist renowned for his watercolours of birds. Lot 401 Virginian Partridge, Perdix Virginiana from his series Birds of America, fetched £8500 just over the estimate. However the star of the sale was undoubtedly the bound group of 13very rare early impressions by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, of Vedute di Roma (lot 512). Celebrated for his views of the ruins of Rome and fantastic compositions of building interiors with highly contrasting light and shade, this handsome group with the engraver's guidelines, sold for a resounding £19000 (estimated £6000-8000).

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