Dealer Martin Beisly Fine Art is to offer the pictures from his gallery in St James’s.
They are: Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1867, by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910); Whispers, 1881, by Frederic Lord Leighton (1830-96); and The Wolf’s Den, 1863, by John Everett Millais (1829-96). They will be offered at £5.5m, £5m and £800,000 respectively.
Isabella and the Pot of Basil has been in the US for the past 140 years. It was deaccessioned by Delaware Art Museum in 2014 when it sold at Christie’s. The Millais had previously been in a Japanese collection.
Martin Beisly said: “It is rare to have one museum-quality Victorian painting for sale, but I am delighted to offer three exceptional works this spring.”
Early in 2019, the dealer sold The Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, the last of the great panoramas by William Powell Frith. It was offered on behalf of the family of the original buyer Alfred Pope, for a price in the region of £10m. The buyer has agreed it can go on loan to a museum.
