“Self-Portrait in a broad-brimmed Hat ” by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)

Self-Portrait in a broad-brimmed Hat

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys

c. 1848

Oil on board

34.50 cm. x 26.50 cm

Collection: Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries

Provenance: Robert Jackson, given or sold to him by the artist Sotheby's Belgravia, 14 February 1978, lot 130; sold to: Mr. Thomson (£150) Sotheby's Belgravia, 20 October 1981, lot 224; sold to: Mr Berman (£200)

Peter Nahum has most generously given its permission to use in the Victorian Web information, images, and text from its catalogues. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with Peter Nahum Ltd. Readers should consult the website of Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries to obtain information about recent exhibitions and to order their catalogues. [GPL]

Commentary by Peter Nahum

Frederic Sandys painted this elegant self-portrait at the time when a new era in British art was founded. However, it was not until the 1857 that he met the Pre-Raphaelites, when his brilliant caricature satire on Millais's Sir Isumbras at the Ford led him to a friendship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Staying with Rossetti in Chelsea in 1866, he introduced and encouraged the great draughtsman to work in coloured chalks. The two artists, the visionary symbolist and the penetrating portraitist, were to become the finest exponents of pastel drawing in the Victorian era.

Sandys’s celebrated portraiture of the gentry contrasted with his bohemian lifestyle. His devoted mistress and nine children, expensive West-end life and passion for gambling on the horses led him to declare bankruptcy in 1876. As a result his friends tried to raise five hundred pounds to enable him to emigrate. Typical of his easy-going attitude, he replied that if he had five hundred pounds he would stay in England.

Bibliography

Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys (1829-1904), A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge: The Antique Collector’s Club Ltd., 2001; catalogue 1A30, page 93, illustrated in colour plate 1, page 33

Nahum, Peter. The Brotherhood of Ruralists and the Pre-Raphaelites. Exhibition Catalogue. London: Leicester Galleries, 2005, Illustrated, number 25.

Wood, Esther. A Consideration of the Art of Frederick Sandys. Special Winter Number of The Artist. London 1896, page 11.

Last modified 23 December 2010