Nothing ‘innocent’ about erotic picture

THERE’S nothing ‘innocent’ about a drawing being sold by Cirencester auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent this month. A piece of erotic art by the famous 19th century artist Mihály von Zichy leaves little to the imagination.

Zichy was court painter to Czar Alexander II in 1856, but is most famous for his series of 40 studies of sex amongst the lower classes, entitled Love.

Described as a Karma Sutra for 19th century Europe, Zichy’s pictures were widely reproduced, and bought as ‘studies of the human form’ by well-to-do Victorians with too much class to admit they were actually seeking titillation.

The picture, which goes under the hammer on April 11, is a signed original, produced in Paris some time between 1874 and 1882. It features a woman seated on a reclining man, with her back to his chest, and is one of the less explicit pictures in the Love series.

Drawn in black, white and red chalk, and measuring 8ins by 10ins, the piece is valued at between £1,000 and £1,500. Auctioneer Philip Allwood said: “This is a superb chalk drawing and tastefully done. There’s a good market for Victorian erotica and I expect this Zichy original to perform well.”

Far less raunchy is a portrait of Sir James Suttie of Balgone, Haddington, husband of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Hew Dalrymple by Allan Ramsay. Ramsay was the official painter to the royal court of George III and his portrait of the Duke of Argyll graced the face of Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes.

The portrait, painted on canvas, signed and dated 1754, and measuring two-and-a-half feet by two feet, features Sir James in a red military jacket, probably of his privately-raised Troop of East Lothian Cavalry and is expected to achieve £20,000 to £30,000.

As always, sporting pictures are in good supply. Among the highlights is a water colour by the renowned equestrian artist Lionel Edwards.

The Bristol-born painter was one of the most popular illustrators of hunting and sporting subjects from the Edwardian period to the 1950s and is known as the ‘grand old man of sporting art. Irish Point to Point, a signed water colour featuring four horses and riders tackling a stone wall jump, is expected to achieve between £1,000 and £1,500.

Horses also feature heavily in an original poster advertising Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Printed in the states in 1902 by the Courier Company Lithograph Department, Buffalo NY, the poster has been in the family of the artist who designed it for over 100 years.

Standing at seven feet tall the poster is an interesting curio but not particularly valuable, carrying an estimate of £70 to £100.

Staying in the Wild West, the auction features books as well as paintings, and of particular interest is the diary of a vicar’s son who trekked across America from East to West in the late 1700s. The hand-written journal, in black ink on brown parchment, chronicles the journey made by William Forster, son of the Reverend Robert Forster, from Wrenbury in Cheshire between 1796 – the year that George Washington left presidential office and Tennessee became the 16th state to join the union – and 1798.

His epic and dangerous journey – fifty years before the Gold Rush sparked a mass migration westwards – starts in Philadelphia and ends with his death back in Philadelphia two years later, aged 38. The diary is valued at between £150 and £200.

There is also a complete collection of satirical magazine Punch from its first issue in July 1841 – as the London Charivari – to 1944. The collection is presented in leather and clothbound, guild tooled binders and also includes Punch almanacs and The History of Punch, published in 1895. This extremely rare collection is expected to achieve between £1,000 and £1,500.

	A complete collection of satirical magazine Punch from its first issue in July 1841 to 1944	An original poster advertising Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show
One of the Love series by Mihály von Zichy
Sir James Suttie by Allan Ramsay         Irish Point to Point by Lionel Edwards