Art and Letters: Still-life of books, paintings, prints and other objects

細節

Benjamin Walter Spiers (fl.1875-1893)
Art and Letters: Still-life of books, paintings, prints and other objects
signed and dated 'B.W. SPIERS./1892.' (upper right) and inscribed 'ART AND LETTERS/B.W. SPIERS/...WOOD/ACOL ROAD/WEST HAMPSTEAD/N.W. NO.1.' (on the artist's label on the reverse of the frame)
pencil and watercolour, heightened with touches of white
18¼ x 27¼ in. (46.3 x 69.2 cm.)

來源

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 7 April 1998, lot 138, where purchased by the present owner.

注意事項

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

拍品專文

Benjamin Walter Spiers was a London painter of genre scenes and still-lifes. Christopher Wood considers him to be 'one of the most remarkable painters of still-life in English Art'. His watercolours are very different to the typical nature morte, as painted so successfully by 'Bird's Nest' Hunt - William Henry Hunt, O.W.S. (1790-1864) and his followers. Spiers was interested in possessions rather than objects of nature and his curiosity for antiquarian objects, books, maps, prints etc. His work can be seen as illusionistic decoration rather than straight forward still-life. The successful deception he achieves in trompe l'oeil: 'to trick the eye' and display the artist's skill in depicting three-dimensionality and surfaces such as glass, mirror and ceramic.