London – Although the portrait painter Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) enjoyed the company of the rich and famous who clamoured to sit for him, he found his closest friendships among the professional men and their families who had supported him before he became successful. Many of his most appealing portraits are of subjects from this intimate circle as in the unrecorded Portrait of Jane Allnutt with her pet spaniel, which leads Bonhams 75-lot Old Master Paintings sale in London on Wednesday 8 December. Estimated at £150,000-250,000, it has been in the same family since it was first commissioned.

The portrait depicts the daughter of wealthy wine and brandy merchant John Allnutt, a close personal friend of Lawrence and one of his most important and generous patrons. The artist painted several portraits of the Allnutt family – including a full-length picture of John himself, and a further study of Jane in 1826. From the latter it is possible to date the painting in the sale to around 1821-22, when Jane was three or four. Lawrence was known for his attention to detail and made a point of choosing the costume and setting most suitable for his sitters himself, rather than leave the task to his studio assistants. Here, he has posed Jane hugging her favourite dog.

Bonhams Director of Old Master Paintings, Andrew McKenzie, said: "This charming unrecorded work dates from the last decade of Lawrence's life when many of the best portraits he painted were of children. It has an appealing freshness and intimacy and, of course, a wonderful provenance having been in the family of the sitter right until the present day. Dismissed by previous generations as superficial, Lawrence is now taking his place among the greatest portrait painters of his generation. The National Gallery in London recently acquired Lawrence's famous Red Boy (the first painting to be displayed on a British postage stamp) describing the artist as 'one of the finest European portraitists of the early 19th century' – a verdict this delightful work certainly confirms."

Writing in the winter edition of Bonhams Magazine, art critic of The Guardian, Jonathan Jones said: " Lawrence was the last in a long line of great Georgian portrait masters – Reynolds and Gainsborough, Ramsay, Romney and Raeburn – who can all be dismissed by the hasty and insensitive, yet all contain unexpected depths."

The sale also includes The Madonna and Child by Venetian painter Antonio Vivarini (active 1440-1476/84). This beautiful work, which is believed to date from the latter part of Vivarini's career, was owned by the Munich art historian Erwin Rosenthal, who settled in Paris after the National Socialists took power in Germany in 1933. The Nazi invasion of France in 1940 forced him to flee again leaving behind his art collection which was confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). A receipt in the ERR inventory shows that the painting was taken to Buxheim for restoration in 1944. Towards the end of the war, it is believed to have been stored with many other looted treasures in the Altaussee salt mine. The assiduous record-keeping of the ERR enabled the painting to be identified and rightfully returned to the Rosenthal family in 1947. Estimate: £80,000-120,000.

24 November 2021