Beschreibung:

American School (late 18th century) Two figures by a card table pen, ink and watercolour 15.5 x 22cm (6 x 8½ in.) Probably New England, circa 1790. Provenance: Joan Brownstein, Massachusetts Purchased from the above by the present owner in 2014 An 18th Century card table, the top half-open to reveal a red baize playing surface is flanked by two bust-length portraits of a man and a woman. This intriguing picture was most probably created in New England in the late 18th Century. The Pinkers Collection of British, American and European Folk Art This charming collection of folk art takes its name from a diminutive 17th Century cottage on the Kent coast where it has hung and grown in size over the last twenty years. It includes watercolours and oil paintings from the 17th to the early 20th Century. Many are in their original frames and in remarkably fresh condition. Despite its rural location and the provincial subject matter of the works it is a truly international collection and many of the lots have come from some of the most important collectors and dealers in folk art on both sides of the Atlantic including Robert Young Denzil Grant and Charles Plante in England and David Wheatcroft, Joan Brownstein and Austin Miller in America. Folk Art has been described as 'the unselfconscious creativity of academically untrained artists' (Robert Young Folk Art, 1999) and it is this quality that gives many of the works an immediacy and playfulness that has chimed with generations of collectors. Some of the pictures, by journeymen artists, artisans or amateurs are provincial reinterpretations of more sophisticated works, such as the early 18th Century Yate family portraits (lot 122). Others have a joyful disregard of accepted ideas of scale, perspective and colouring, giving them a timeless quality which draws parallels with 20th Century artists including Alfred Wallis and John Nash such as View from La Moinerie (lot 120) and the American School Portrait of a girl (lot 103) has an Outsider Art quality reminiscent of the Art Brut movement founded by Jean Dubuffet Regardless of their origins this unique and varied collection is the manifestation of the vision and passion of a true collector. Condition Report: The sheet has been wrapped around a piece of card and the whole thing laid down on a card mount. Staining and discolouration to the sheet including brown spots throughout. There vertical and horizontal crease marks where the sheet has previously been folded into four. At the centre meeting point of these creases in a small pin hole. There are also various areas of skinning and loss along these crease lines. Where the sheet has been folded around the card, there are also small splits to the weaker areas of the sheet. There are two areas of repair to the upper right edge and a further area of possible repair to the lower right edge. There are also some areas of light water stains throughout but this is largely confined to the lower edges. Some fading to the pen detail in the lady's face. With additional general wear commensurate with age and fragility of the paper. Condition Report Disclaimer