Lot 320: Isaac Snowman, (b.1874, fl.1893-1904)

Contemplation
signed and dated 'Snowman/1901' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (76.8 x 51.4 cm.)

Possibly London, Royal Academy, 1902, no. 58 as 'The Thought of Youth'.

Isaac Snowman was born in Palestine in 1874 but had moved to London by 1893 where he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy. By 1895, once his portrait practice had been established, he moved to St John's Wood, then the most fashionable neighbourhood for artists, and by 1898 he had set up a studio in Fortune Green Road, West Hampstead, an affluent enclave for the Jewish colony in London.

His oeuvre encompasses portraits, still-life and classical scenes, as well as depictions of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, a city to which he often returned. His paintings of women and children are wholly English in conception and execution however, and are closely allied to the work of Arthur John Elsley and Frederick Morgan.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.