Friday, April 30, 2010

William Clarke Wontner - Valeria




signed 'W.Wontner' (lower left)
oil on canvas
25 x 21 in.
Price Realized £84,000
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=1&intObjectID=4827018&sid=069e7a5c-1b80-4e19-a40a-23175dcc26a3


William Clarke Wontner was a portrait and classical subject painter, whose ideal heads embody the neo-classical tradition that he and fellow artist John William Godward (1861-1881) reconfigured for late 19th and early 20th Century tastes. Taking inspiration from artistic progenitors Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic, Lord Leighton, they dispensed with dense detail, and instead set their models against simple marble backgrounds, alluding to contemporary ideals of style whilst upholding classical precepts of beauty

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