Jesuit’s rich portrait of 17th century China, as told to a Florentine scientist, intrigued a fragmented Europe Florentine writer Lorenzo Magalotti published Relazione della China after a colourful evening’s chat in 1665 with Austrian Jesuit priest Father Johann Grueber, who had spent several years in China. Photo: Wellcome Library, London.
Marco Polo wasn t the only adventurer who returned from China with a treasure trove of tales and mesmerising accounts of the Orient. For centuries, missionaries and traders were the savvy travellers who unlocked the mysteries of the Far East, relating them to avid European scholars and readers hungry for all things exotic.
Samuel Pepys Cockerell collection to be offered for sale
The Arch of Titus at Rome looking towards the capital (lot 56) by Frederick Lee Bridell (1831-1863). Estimate £20,000-£30,000.
LONDON
.-Dreweatts will present a group of works directly from the family of the British artist Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1844-1921). The works are coming to auction for the first time since leaving the artist s family collection and will be offered in Dreweatts upcoming Old Master, British and European Art sale on May 27, 2021.
The collection is led by a stunning portrait of Cockerell, by George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) one of the leading portrait and Symbolist painters of the late 19th Century, known as `Englands Michelangelo.