Country life 22 june cropped

Art market

Huon Mallalieu

State of the art Whatever your budget or taste in pre-contemporary art, there is sure to be something to tempt you at London Art Week

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ONDON ART WEEK, this year from July 1 to 8 with a preview evening on June 30, now brings together about 50 Mayfair and St James’s dealers and galleries, nine of them new to the event, together with three auction houses. It proudly, and no doubt rightly, proclaims itself ‘the world’s most important gallerybased celebration of pre-contemporary art.’

The concept of co-ordinating exhibitions began with Master Drawings in 2001, the success of which prompted the launch of Master Paintings in 2009, soon followed by Master Sculpture.

Although some of the pleasure of gatherings of the like-minded, which characterised the early weeks, has inevitably been lost, there are now treats for collectors and connoisseurs of all tastes (so long as it’s not Warhol) and most pockets, not to mention for browsers.

In terms of numbers, the sculpture dealers began as the poor relations, but their numbers have been boosted by the inclusion of antiquities specialists to give a continuum from Ancient Egypt to the present day. Also, for the purposes of the week, some of Duke Street arms dealer Peter Finer’s stock can be classified as sculptural, as indeed it is.

It would probably be as well not to encourage more participants overall, as it will become impossible for visitors, other than those with a tight focus, to do justice to many of the shows that might interest them.

The organisers are fully aware of this danger, and have taken steps to alleviate it: ‘The breadth and variety of works on offer can seem overwhelming, so this year we have teamed up with Art History UK to offer a series of bespoke tours giving insight into themes of the event and the area. “Who’s afraid of Old Master Art?”, “How to Start an Old Mas92 Country Life, June 22, 2016

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Fig 1: Bronze protome on show at Rupert Wace Fig 3 above: Spanish School memento mori on show at Agnew.

Fig 4 below: Gold drachm of 315BC on show at the Kallos Gallery shoe leather. Thirteen are tightly packed in Bury, Ryder and Duke Streets and in Mason’s Yard, with more in a short stretch of Jermyn Street nearby, in Park Place and St James’s Place and one just across St James’s Square.

Fig 2: Etruscan armour.

With Ariadne Galleries ter Collection” and “Antiquities Revitalised” are just some of the tours on offer.’

For details, visit www. londonartweek.co.uk In terms of footslogging distance, the St James’s W1 galleries offer excellent value for

North of Piccadilly, things are more spread out, but not unmanageable for the fit and fleet.

To indicate a little of the variety on offer, this preview will follow a roughly chronological path, beginning in the 7th century BC at Rupert Wace of Crown Passage, between Pall Mall and King Street, St James’s. In Ancient Greece, as in India, the eagleheaded, lion-bodied griffin guarded gold and thus bronze protomes (Fig 1)—that is, busts of a griffin’s head and neck—came to be used as handles for cauldrons to hold golden offerings for the gods. A fine example is the highlight of this show.

Fig 5: Stained-glass roundel by van Noort. With Sam Fogg www.countrylife.co.uk

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Fig 6: Cornelius Johnson’s Sir William Campbell of Combwell. With The Weiss Gallery

Fig 7: Pen-and-wash Marcel Duchamp drawing.

With Benjamin Proust Fig 8 left: Moret’s La Baie de Lampaul.

With Stoppenbach & Delestre Fig 9: Bugatti hippo. With Sladmore Gallery

A little more recent, perhaps from 500BC to 450BC, is Etruscan armour (Fig 2) offered by the antiquities dealer Ariadne Galleries of New York and London, where it shares Hill Street premises with Daniel Katz. This is part of a show entitled ‘Art and Adornment: Treasures of Combat’, which also includes perhaps the oldest item of the week, an elegant 3rd millennium BC Phoenician gold axe-head.

Around the corner in Davies

Street, the Kallos Gallery has a similarly themed although more tightly focused show, ‘Horses, Rulers and Victory in the Art of Ancient Greek Coinage’, for in those early times, as during the Renaissance, coins and medals were often the work of leading sculptors. There is, for instance, a gold drachm (Fig 4) minted in about 315BC under Agathocles of Syracuse, the son of a potter who fought the Carthaginians and made himself king

Pick of the week I cannot imagine how I have failed to make the acquaintance of the Master of the Unruly Children before this. He is the coinage of Wilhelm von Bode, who created the great Berlin Museums in the late 19th century, and stands for an anonymous early-16th-century Florentine sculptor, who is known for squalling or mischievous children. Trinity Fine Art of Bruton Street has a suitably badly behaved, but hardly childish, 111 ⁄4in-long terracotta Bacchus. www.countrylife.co.uk

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of Sicily. Machiavelli numbered him among ‘Those Who By Their Crimes Come to Be Princes’.

The three-legged triskele is the sign of Sicily as well as the Isle of Man. Agnew in St James’s Place has two shows. The first focuses solely on a work by probably the grandest name of the week,

a gold-ground Crucifixion by Paolo Uccello, which dates from about 1423, and the second following the theme of memento mori from the 16th century to the 20th, from a 111 ⁄8in by 103 ⁄8in Spanish School skull (Fig 3) to three photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Among the selected works at Sam Fogg in Clifford Street is a 101 ⁄4in-diameter stained-glass roundel (Fig 5) attributed to the architect and painter Lambert van Noort (about 1520–71). It is based on one of the etchings designed by van Noort on the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Chaldeans whose regular backslidings attracted heavenly punishment. Here, he dreams of a great tree overshadowing the land, which is cut down by angelic command.

The prophet Daniel (Daniel 4: 24–27) drew the obvious conclusions for him.

In Jermyn Street, The Weiss Gallery marks its 30th year with an impressive group of 30 loaned and other portraits

by Cornelius Johnson (1593– 1661), Van Dyck’s precursor, who was brought back to public attention by last year’s National Portrait Gallery show.

Among them is the 30in by 243 ⁄4in Sir William Campion of Combwell (1585–1640) (Fig 6).

To bring matters more up to date, we have the the sun-filled 211 ⁄4in by 255 ⁄8in La baie de Lampaul, Île de Ouessant by Henry Moret (1856–1913) (Fig 8), shown by Stoppenbach & Delestre, now in Ryder Street.

The Sladmore Gallery has animal sculptures by Rembrandt Bugatti (1884–1916) (Fig 9).

Selected works with Benjamin Proust cover a remarkable spectrum from a 15th-century Milanese marble relief to a 10in by 85 ⁄8in pen-and-wash drawing dated 1909 by Marcel Duchamp (Fig 7)—which will shock those who only know him for his Fountain.

Next week Ancient and modern Country Life, June 22, 2016 93

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