This catalogue concentrates exclusively on old master drawings and selected paintings from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Undoubtedly, the key work here is the German Baroque painter Hans von Aachen’s The Martyrdom of St Sebastian in a composition first developed by the artist for the altarpiece of the chapel of St Sebastian in St Michael in Munich in about 1586. In contrast to numerous workshop replicas and later copies and versions of this work, our example is distinguished by the consistently high quality of its execution and is regarded as the finest of the autograph works of this subject. Among other major works, our catalogue includes a recently rediscovered work by the French painter Catherine Lusurier, a Portrait of the Artist Carle Vernet previously attributed to Jean Siméon Chardin and a superb watercolour study for John Martin’s most famous late work The Plains of Heaven.
Catalogue by Emanuel von Baeyer. Order this catalogue.