Upcoming Auction Preview: Sotheby's London

On July 13th, Sotheby's London will be holding its auction of Victorian & Edwardian Art at their New Bond Street location. Previews for the sale begin Friday, July 9th from 9:00 AM until 4:30 PM, then continue on Sunday (12-5 PM), Monday (9 AM - 4:30 PM), and finish on Tuesday, July 13th (9 AM - Noon). All 157 lots of British Art are available for immediate online viewing, however, in the e-catalogue for this sale, located here.

From Sotheby's overview of the sale:

The Victorian and Edwardian era was one of the most fascinating periods in art history and one of the most diverse. This sale in particular presents the best of the varying styles and schools of artists, from PreRaphaelitism in the mid nineteenth century to the work of the Newlyn artists and their followers in the early twentieth century. Many of the pictures have not been seen in public for many decades, including an exquisite charcoal drawing by John William Waterhouse entitled Flora made in preparation for his large painting Flora and the Zephyrs. Unknown to modern biographers having been in a private collection for almost half a century, this drawing is one of a strong group of Pre-Raphaelite works by Rossetti, Millais, Stillman and Watts, which also includes a dramatic coloured chalk drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of his model Alexa Wilding and a delicate portrait by George Frederick Watts of his adopted daughter Blanche.

A painting that captures the industrious spirit of the Victorian age is William Logsdail's Bank and the Royal Exchange painted in 1887 a bustling sunlit image of the expanding city of London when it was the heart of the Empire.¹

¹ Victorian & Edwardian Art. Retrieved June 14, 2010 from {http://www.sothebys.com/app/paddleReg/paddlereg.do?dispatch=eventDetails&event_id=29903}