don Art Week illustrates the extraordinary range and quality of art dating from antiquity to the 20th century available on the market and strongly underlines the unrivalled connoisseurship and expertise to be found in the city. Each summer, London Art Week provides a platform for more than 40 leading international art dealers to present exciting selling exhibitions, engaging events and art talks, at private galleries in Mayfair and St. James’s. The exhibitions coincide with the Old Master paintings and drawings sales at the major auction houses, and attract countless collectors, connoisseurs and museum curators to the capital. Discover passion, power and politics through the lens of historic works of art.

The range of art to be featured during LAW is broad and includes Classical antiquities, Medieval and Renaissance textiles, master paintings and drawings from the Elizabethan and Baroque to Neoclassical and Post-Impressionist eras, watercolours from the 18th to 20th centuries, master sculptures in bronze, marble and terracotta, and modern art works up to the turn of the 20th century. Special subjects span portraiture, fashion, Symbolism and Futurism, as well as several centuries of British, French, Flemish and Italian art.

Highlights and major works being offered for sale include: – a recently-discovered mythological painting of Hercules Freeing Prometheus by Hendrick Munniks (active in Utrecht circa 1624-1643) that sheds new light on the impact of Caravaggio’s manner in the Northern Netherlands and constitutes the highlight of the early career of the artist (Colnaghi); – an important Abolitionist work by Henry Hoppner Meyer (1780-1847) exhibited at the Society of British Artists in 1827 accompanied by a poem, The Young Catechist, by Charles Lamb. A portrait of Lamb by Meyer was exhibited at the RBA (previously collection of the India Office, now Government Art Collection) in the same year. The painting was also engraved by Meyer and published as a “Poetical Illustration” in the annual Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832, for a poem called The African by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802- 1838) (Ben Elwes Fine Art); – an impressive early 16th century head, carved in white marble in medallic profile, of a ‘Saracen’ wearing a bandana. It may be a heraldic device of the famed Florentine Pucci family, supporters of the Medici, or alternatively a portrait, real or imaginary, of a Moor from Venice, in whose maritime environment sailors, merchants – even pirates – from Africa were frequently seen (Gallery Desmet); – a stylish portrait of Jacques Fath (1912-1954), the legendary Parisian fashion designer and tutor to the young Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018), by Serge Ivanoff (1893-1983). Fath designed costumes for films, including for Moira Shearer in Powell & Pressburger’s ‘The Red Shoes’ (1948), and for Kay Kendall in the 1953 film ‘Genevieve’ (Bagshawe Fine Art); – a rare Portrait of a Venetian Nobleman by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), one of the all-time greats of Western art, unseen on the market for 60 years, that will spearhead Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings sale in London on 4 July 2018.

A series of special events and masterclasses in art appreciation are part of the London Art Week gallery experience. Popular past events have explored the Renaissance works of Raphael, Lotte Laserstein and the women she painted during the inter-war years, and the fascination of Sir John Soane for the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I. A full programme of events, exhibition map and opening times will be available shortly at www.londonartweek.co.uk. There is no charge to visit the exhibitions. Take a lunchtime or post-work gallery hop around two or three neighbouring events, or spend a leisurely day exploring the history of art in Mayfair and St. James’s, the celebrated heartland of London’s gallery scene for over 200 years and home to many of the world’s greatest art dealerships.