Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are delighted to offer for sale this large portrait oil on canvas by the celebrated artist ALFRED PRAGA RBA PSM who has signed the painting in the lower right hand corner and dated it 1909. The painting is a half length portrait, turned to the right, of an aristocratic lady. She has her red hair piled up on top of her head and is wearing a choker necklace high around her throat. Queen Alexandra always wore either necklaces like this or very high necklines, to cover a small scar on her neck from an operation in childhood. This may well be a portrait of Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII, as it bears a considerable resemblance to known pictures of her.

ALFRED PRAGA RBA PSM, 1867-1949, was an English portrait, genre, miniature and pastel painter, who was born in Liverpool. He studied art at South Kensington, at the Royal Academy Schools, in Paris and Antwerp. He exhibited at the RA and other leading London Galleries. He was elected a Full Member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1911. He was one of the initial council members of the Society of Miniaturists in 1895 and became their President in 1899 and remained so until his death in London on the 25th February 1949.

One of his miniatures is in Queen Mary's Dolls House and there are two of his paintings in the National Collections. For those interested in the artist, there is an interesting video with no sound, available at Pathe news, of an interview with Alfred Praga in 1925. If you would like to see it, please look the artist up on google.

Biographical information on this artist is available in The Dictionary of British Artists ( Collector's Club), The Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Christopher Wood and the Dictionary of British Artist by Grant Waters. He was listed in Who's Who in 1924.

Auction results for this artist are available at the usual sites and details of his numerous exhibitions in The Dictionary of British Artists.

The painting has been newly framed in a 3 1/4" gilt frame and slip which suit it very well. It is ready to hang.

Medium Oils on canvas