Neal Auction 2012

46 life-class drawings had already been assembled into a small collection, as recorded on a note attached to one of the group (“set by Wm. Chas. Landseer, March 1847”). The set was sold intact at Christie’s in 1966: one of the five sheets was acquired by Shepherd Gallery Associates in New York, and published in their English 19th Century catalogue of 1983 (no. 60, the source of the citation above); another was acquired by St. Jude Gallery, London, and published by Edward Lucie-Smith, Life Class , 1989, p. 20. Prof. Malcolm Warner, Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, wrote to James Lamantia in 1999 that on the basis of the “convincing inscription” quoted above, and compelling evidence that it is “securely attributed,” he planned to include the sheet in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Millais. As is certainly apparent from these early masterpieces, Millais was a highly precocious prodigy. He was taken up to London (from Southampton) in 1838, and accepted into the Royal Academy Schools as its youngest-ever student in 1840, at the age of eleven. He won a silver medal there in 1843 for a drawing After the Antique, and in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1846 he showed his first painting; a second in 1847 won a gold medal (making it clear why Landseer was motivated to collect his drawings). At the Academy Schools Millais became a close friend of William Holman Hunt (1827-1910); together with Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) they resolved to form the renowned “Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood” at Millais’s house in September 1848. For ten or a dozen years he painted some of the best-known Pre-Raphaelite pictures; from the 1860s he developed several (ever more lucrative) changes of style, and by 1878 had become the wealthiest and most celebrated artist of his time. He was created a Baronet in 1885—the first artist to be elevated to the peerage—and was successively an Associate (1853), a Member (1863) and the President (1895) of the Royal Academy. This hauntingly beautiful sheet, distantly and selectively recalling the fashionable style of William Etty (1787-1849), is one of the finest examples of his earliest manner. References: Malcolm Warner, “Millais, Sir John Everett,” Grove Dictionary of Art, Jane Turner, ed., 34 vols., London 1996, vol. 21, pp. 601-604; idem, letter to James Lamantia, 10 September 1999; Christopher Wood, The Pre-Raphaelites, London 1981, New York 1994, pp. 30-39; Millais, monographic exhibition at Tate Britain, 26 September 2007-13 January 2008. 167. Attributed to Michael Dahl (Swedish/British, 1656- 1743) , “A Lady, three-quarter length, Seated with her Head on her Right Hand”, c. 1700, oil on canvas, unsigned, 50 in. x 40 1/4 in., in an antique carved and gessoed wood frame. $5000/7000 Provenance: A New York City town house, c. 1940; descended in a Mississippi family. Note: This impressive and well-preserved painting shows a young woman seated languidly before a large fringed drapery, her right elbow on a stone balustrade, and her dreamily tilted head propped on her right hand. Its size of 50 x 40 inches is identical with many portraits that Dahl painted in England, where he worked for almost sixty years (and rarely signed his pictures). For the sixth Duke of Somerset he painted in the 1690s a celebrated series of seven notable contemporary beauties—commissioned for full-lengths, but in the event painted as three-quarter lengths—in emulation of Sir Godfrey Kneller’s famous “Hampton Court Beauties.” This picture is almost identical in pose (apart from the raised right hand, and the leg positions) with Dahl’s Lady, Seated, in a Golden Satin Dress —at 50 x 40 ½ in.—sold at Christie’s New York, 2 June 2005; even the stone balustrade and the darker drapery falling across her right shoulder, to be held in her lap, are the same. Reference: Richard Jeffree, “Dahl, Michael,” Grove Dictionary of Art, Jane Turner, ed., London, 1996, 34 vols., vol. 8, pp. 453-455. 168. Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A. (English, 1829-1896) , “Reclining Female Nude” (recto) and “Standing Male Nude” (verso), two life studies, c. 1845, black, brown and white chalk on buff-colored wove paper, signed with given-name initials J[ohn] E[verett] at right center on male image, and later inscribed with the artist’s full name on repair tape, showing at upper left on the male figure; sides of sheet irregularly trimmed, but averaging 17 3/8 in. x 12 1/4 in. between deckled top and bottom edges. $2000/3000 Provenance: William Charles Landseer, by 1847; Christie’s London, 1966; James R. Lamantiat, Jr., New Orleans and New York. Note: The two spectacular nude studies on this two-sided sheet were drawn when Millais was only sixteen: by the time he was seventeen this and four of his other 167 168 (recto) 168 (verso)