L a - b e a u t é - s a u v e r a - l e - m o n d e ~ D o s t o ï e v s k i

L a - b e a u t é - s a u v e r a - l e - m o n d e  ~  D o s t o ï e v s k i



Sunday, March 17, 2024

Before summer ends - photographs by Keith Vaughan, circa 1938



I believe that the majority of these photographs were taken on Pagham Beach in West Sussex during the waning days of the Thirties - with war already on the horizon - most likely at the end of July or the beginning of August in 1938. 


Most if not all of these photographs were taken as reference material for the artist's painting practice, and were never meant for publication, so the printing and condition of some of these images is quite poor. Several also display what appear to be crop marks.


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Self-portrait, ND.

John Keith Vaughan (23 August 1912, Selsey, West Sussex - 4 November 1977, London), British painter. He endured a difficult childhood - his father abandoned the family - and he was a boarder at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham; the art master there provided his only formal art training. He worked for an advertising agency before the war, but left his job to become a full time artist in 1939. He also began keeping a journal that year, a practice he would continue for the rest of his life. A conscientious objector, he was conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps two years later, but his first exhibitions took place during the war. During this time he formed friendships with the other painters, including Graham Sutherland and John Minton; later, from 1948-52, he shared a house with the latter. After the war he traveled widely, often completing large-scale murals as well as teaching. In 1962 he had a major retrospective exhibition in London. Four years later were published extracts from his private journals in which, a year before the decriminalization of homosexuality, his sexuality was expressed openly. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1975. For the next two years, though initially able to create work and teach part-time, he increasingly suffered overwhelming depression and a growing dependance on drugs and alcohol. In 1977, at the age of sixty-five, after counseling and assistance from a doctor, he decided to terminate his life. After taking an overdose of barbiturates, he recorded his last moments in his diary as the drugs took effect. The remainder of his journals were published in full in 1989.

"Idol," 1940.



Friday, March 15, 2024

A father-in-law's wedding present - pearl and diamond pendant brooch, circa 1865

 

Pearl and diamond brooch, circa 1865. An unsigned piece accompanied by a fitted case stamped Emil Biedermann.
Auctioned at Sotheby's in November of 2023, the brooch sold for 863,600 Swiss francs against an estimate of 270,000 - 450,000.


Note the looped hooks attached to the backs of the top and second-from-the-top elements. This was to enable the second element to be detached, making the brooch's pendant shorter, or to be able to remove the entire pendant section so that the top element could be worn alone. 

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Maria Theresia, Duchess of Württemberg in 1875 wearing the brooch pinned to a neck ribbon.

Provenance:

Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria-Teschen, Duchess of Württemberg (1845-1927) - received on the occasion of her marriage to Philipp, Duke of Württemberg (1838-1917) in 1865, a wedding present from her new father-in-law Alexander, Duke of Württemberg (1804-1881).

Archduchess Maria Immaculata of Austria-Tuscany, Duchess of Württemberg (1878-1968) - the daughter-in-law of above.




Sunday, March 10, 2024

All together, now - The Bendemann Family and their Friends / The Schadow Circle, 1830-31

 

Der Schadow-Kreis (The Schadow Circle) - properly known as Die Familie Bendemann und ihre Freunde (The Bendemann Family and Their Friends) - is a group portrait created by the painters Julius Hübner, Eduard Bendemann, Theodor Hildebrandt, Karl Ferdinand Sohn, and their teacher and mentor Wilhelm Schadow in 1830/1831. It is a document of a close-knit family and friends, a circle of artists from which the Düsseldorf School of Painting emerged. 

The figures portrayed in the painting are, left to right:


Karl Ferdinand Sohn (1805 - 1867), artist.
Eduard Bendemann (1811 - 1889), artist, younger son of Anton Bendemann.
Anton Heinrich Bendemann (1777 - 1866), banker. (Until the acceptance of Berlin citizenship in 1809, he bore the name Aaron Hirsch Bendix; he belonged to the milieu of assimilated Berlin Jews and had converted to Protestantism with his family.)
Theodor Hildebrandt (1804 - 1874), artist.
Fanny Eleonore Bendemann, née von Halle (1778 - 1857), wife of Anton Bendemann.


Pauline Charlotte Hübner née Bendemann (1809 - 1895), wife of Julius Hübner, daughter of Anton Bendemann.
Emma Hübner (1830 - 1844), daughter of Julius and Pauline Hübner.
Emil Bendemann (1807 - 1882), elder son of Anton Bendemann.
Julius Hübner (1806 - 1882), artist.
Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow (1788 - 1862), artist and teacher.


Julius Hübner made preliminary studies for the painting in 1830 while in Rome; as the instigator of the project he is, appropriately, the only subject facing the viewer. The members of the group portrayed were all living in the "Eternal City" at the time - the “Casa Bendemann-Hübner” had established itself in the Via del Babuino near the Piazza del Popolo - and the painting was created as a sort of souvenir of their stay there; the painting on the wall behind the figures - an evening view of St. Peter's Basilica and the Castel Sant'Angelo - certainly underscores the connection with that time and place. 

For some reason, Emil Bendemann's left hand, although laid out in glaze, remained unfinished.

Theodor Hildebrandt's diary shows that the painting was begun on December 27, 1830. Hildebrandt painted Karl Ferdinand Sohn and Anton Bendemann. Sohn painted Hildebrandt, Schadow, and Eduard Bendemann. Eduard painted his mother and his brother Emil, while Hübner painted his wife Pauline and daughter Emma. Hübner himself was painted by Schadow. The painting is said to have only been completed after the return to Düsseldorf in the summer of 1831.


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Several years ago, I did a post on Hübner's fascinating and beautiful portrait of his wife Pauline.




Friday, March 8, 2024

Improbable flight - three feathery mythological subjects

 
Daedalus Fixing Wings onto the Shoulders of Icarus, by Pieter Thijs, circa third quarter of the seventeenth century.
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Cupid in a Tree, by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, circa 1795-1805.
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Pegasus, by Walter Crane, 1889.