William Turner of Oxford – A Cornfield at Sunrise – watercolour (£3,000-5,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £6,000
The pastoral qualities of the English landscape will be highlighted at Sotheby’s in London on May 22 when Christopher Cone’s collection of paintings come under the hammer. There are 63 works from John Constable in the early 19th century to Richard Eurich in the mid-20thcentury. The vision of England conjured by these artists is meticulous in detail, delicate in colouring, and romantically lyrical. Collectively, this wealth of little masterpieces of landscape painting speaks to the viewer of a piece of land that is ‘forever England’.
For 32 years, Christopher Cone was the partner of the late Stanley J. Seeger, one of the greatest collectors of our time, and together they amassed a succession of exceptional treasures. Christopher went his own direction too, with his eye honed by several memorable years working as a Victorian paintings specialist at Sotheby’s Belgravia in the 1970s, during which time he calculates he catalogued more than 10,000 pictures.