‘Renaissance to Impressionism’, Masterpieces from the Southampton Museum, An illustrated guide

“Renaissance to Impressionism, Masterpieces from Southampton City Art Gallery “, was designed to bring the extensive and little known holdings of the Southampton museum to a wider audience.

The book originates from a visit we made many years ago to the Southampton City Art Gallery, where we were impressed by the quality and variety of the museum but disappointed to discover that there were, at the time, no recent publications on the collection.

There had to be a limit on what could be discussed from the two thousand five hundred works of art in the collection. We decided to concentrate on the foreign paintings from the Renaissance to the Impressionists. We placed the masterpieces in historical sequence backed up by a scholarly apparatus in the final section of the book.

Extracts follow from reviews of the Exhibition which accompanied the publication of “Renaissance to Impressionism”.

“Handsomely produced, it effortlessly makes the case that museums of this calibre house considerable treasures”
Nick Parker, Sunday Times.

“a delightful overview of the history of European painting.”
Art Quarterly NACF

“Extraordinary masterpieces….lavish exhibition catalogue”
Dalya Alberge, The Times.

“a balanced display of European painting”
Martin Gayford, The Telegraph.

“Jewels from the vaults”
Laura Cumming, The Guardian.

“one of the best art collections in the south of England”
Frank Whitford, The Sunday Times

‘The Life of Christ’ as seen by artists through the ages to commemorate the millennium

We published this catalogue to celebrate the Millennium and mark our ten-year anniversary as art dealers.  Until recent times Christian ideas have formed the basis of Western European Art for nearly 2000 years.  The Life of Christ is the central theme of the Christian message and we brought together a group of paintings by Renaissance and Baroque masters illustrating different stages of the story.

Later sections in the catalogue were devoted to French Art of the 18th century and Dutch Art of the 17th century.  The catalogue included important paintings by Michael Sweerts, Claude Vignon, Guido Reni, Nicholas de Largilliere, Francois Boucher, Paul Bril and Jacob van Ruisdael.  There were essays written by leading scholars in their respective fields such as Dr David Franklin, Lindsey Shaw Miller, Christopher Wright, Dr Stephen Pepper, Dr Mathias Weniger and Dr Albert Blankert.

‘The Wallace Collection’, Jo Hedley and Stephen Duffy,
A Complete Catalogue of the paintings

The Wallace Collection has been a source of inspiration ever since it opened to the public as a National Museum in 1900.  Collected between the 1780′s and 1880′s by successive generations of the Marquesses of Hertford and the 4th Marquess’s illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace, the picture collection is the highlight of an amazing art collection incorporating armour, porcelain, objets and furniture.  It is still housed at the family’s former London residence in Manchester Square.

The paintings collection has many strengths.  Its holdings of French 18th century paintings have long been envied by the French museums.  The Dutch 17th century paintings are second only in importance in England to the National Gallery.  The French 19th century paintings are unequalled outside of Russia and France.  Highlights of the collection include some of the best known images in European art such as Frans Hal’s ‘ The Laughing Cavalier’ and Fragonard’s ‘The Swing.’

This one volume catalogue brings together the entire picture collection of the Wallace Collection in colour for the first time.  To ensure a high standard of reproduction throughout we re-photographed the entire collection of nearly 800 paintings.  Many of the paintings had to be brought down off the walls and some had never been out of their frames before.  Attributions have been updated and a fine text written by Jo Hedley, Curator of Paintings pre-1800 and Stephen Duffy, Curator of Nineteenth-Century Paintings at the Wallace Collection.