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Since 1763 the name 'Russborough' has been synonymous with collecting and dealing in fine art. In the closing decades of the last century the historic town of Port Hope has become home to Lord Russborough's Annex, which specialises in an individual mix of antique maps, paintings and prints.

While Lord Russborough's Annex features a great many works of museum calibre, we also offer a wonderful selection of prints priced at under $100.

macbeth _a_sacrifice

An extract of our prints currently available:

Macbeth R.W. 'A Sacrifice' Only a woman's hair

A Sacrifice, only a woman's hair

Robert Walker Macbeth
A Sacrifice (only a woman's hair)

SCARCE  Etching. Signed proof on Japanese Vellum 1883.

Plate size 15 5/8 x 22 3/4" ( 39.7 x 57.8 cm.) unmounted, with blind New York Printsellers Association stamp (bottom left).
This scarce impression is signed and titled in graphite beneath the plate Robert W. Macbeth Published by Lefevre 12 May 1883.

Ref. AR38 /DNN/ l.andl SVL PRICE CODE D     Click here for price code guide

The setting is the inner room of a seventeenth century wig and periwig makers shop. A poor young woman forced by penury necessity, judging by the state of her dress, is about to make a huge sacrifice to fashion and the beauty. For parting with her beautiful long tresses to which she has obviously been much attached for many years, understandably she is somewhat emotional.

The silver shoe buckled proprietor at least offers her some vestige of dignity as she sits, bodice undone, bonnet and cape discarded, before a screen. The wigmakers assistant cradles a lengthy tress, whilst two apprentices break from their wig-making task to gaze and comment upon it. Before a gilded mirror sit two periwigs on stands.


 

Glimpsed through the door to the front part of the shop a fashionably dressed gentleman complete with shoulder length periwig, beneath his tricorne hat, is engaged in a purchase.




Robert Walker Macbeth RA. RE. 1848-1910 was the son of the Scottish portrait painter Norman Macbeth.
He was an etcher, watercolourist and painter of pastoral landscapes, rustic genre scenes and had a unique etching style, very different from Haden or Whistler. He served on the Council of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers.
He worked initially as an illustrator for the Graphic before exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute and the other major public London venues. He painted contemporary scenes of rural and fishing communities as well as historical genre scenes in the manner of William Quiller Orchardson and Frederick Walker.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy regularly from 1873 until 1904 and also exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery.