Fine Paintings
Ends Friday 5 June from 11am.
The Fine Paintings sale presents traditional collecting strengths, from Staithes Group interest to rural subjects and maritime history.
Lot 25, attributed to Dame Laura Knight, is Staithes Cottage Interior, Grandmother and Child Reading by Candlelight with a Cat Asleep, a watercolour estimated at £2,000 to £3,000. Knight is one of the most celebrated artists associated with the Staithes Group, and works connected to this period remain especially desirable for their intimacy and atmosphere. Dugglebys have previously achieved strong results for Knight’s work, including £3,000 for her limited edition aquatint Lady with Shawl in 2022, a notably strong result which vastly exceeded it's estimate. In another memorable case, a red chalk and charcoal study of Lydia Lopokova was identified by Duggleby as Knight’s work and went on to sell for £4,500.
Lot 84, Harry Becker’s
Shepherd and his Flock, is an oil on canvas estimated at
£3,000 to £5,000. Becker is admired for his sensitive depictions of rural labour and the working countryside, often focusing on shepherds, field workers and livestock with an honest, unsentimental eye. This example, signed and supported by previous auction provenance, captures the artist’s ability to give everyday agricultural life a sense of dignity and atmosphere.
Lot 133, Alexander Harwood’s
H66 Desperandum, is a watercolour and gouache ship portrait, signed, titled and dated 1911, estimated at
£200 to £400. The vessel, Nil Desperandum, was a Hull-built steam trawler that later worked from Scarborough. Painted before the First World War, the picture gains added poignancy from the ship’s later fate, as she was sunk by a German submarine off the Yorkshire Coast in 1916. As both a ship portrait and a record of local maritime history, it offers a compelling link between art, industry and wartime loss.
Browse the full catalogue online and place your bids
here.