I need help in finding out whether these paintings are worth insuring
or not, but have to identify them first.The signatures are hard to
read, and I have tried searching on my various interpretations of the
artists? names with no success. they were bought about 1960 from the
Cooling Gallery in Toronto. I think I remember the artists were
English, but one of the names doesn?t look that way.

The pictures are at either of the following urls. Be sure and click on
the thumbnail and then also click on the ?See Full Size Image? at the
top of the resulting frame, to get the largest picture.

I would like to get the exact names of the artists with any links
telling about them(and if possible the title of the paintings and a
ballpark range of their worth)..

http://tinyurl.com/n5pdn
  or
http://img144.imageshack.us/img_viewer_framed.php?g=littlegirlspainting1nt.jpg

Thanks.

Here you can see a portrait of her sister Anna which Pietronella
Peters painted in 1870 [1]:
http://www.kunstmarkt.de/kunstmarkt/cms/upload/news/thumb450/3577_2ge.jpg
That particular painting was sold for 18,000 Euros (about US-$23,000)
at an art auction in Germany in 2000

Here is another example for her work, "Two little Girls with a Doll",
which was sold for 5600 Euros (about US-$7200) at an

auction in Germany in July 2006 [2]:
http://www.zeller.de/uploads/RTEmagicC_563.jpg.jpg

These two examples show that the works of Pietronella Peters can be
considered valuable. Her paintings are exhibited in

major museums, such as the Stuttgart State Gallery of Art.


As for the other signature, I agree with my colleague answerfinder-ga.
It certainly reads "H. Sherborne". It is very probable

that this H. Sherborne is identical with the artist who created the
paintings listed on the Artnet and Brightwells websites.

The fondness for rural scenes connnects them. Alas, without a
signature for comparison it won't be possible to verify this.

But it seems that finding works of H. Sherborne would not be an easy
task: Hardly anything can be found in online

sources. He seems to be neither a very well-known nor a much valued
artist, judging from the fact that a bundle of two of

his paintings at Brightwells is estimated at £450-600. I'll try to
find out something about him from offline sources, and

should I be successful, I'll let you know. But in case H. Sherborne
was simply one of those mass-producing painters who

work for department stores and the like, I'm not very confident that
I'll locate information about him.

Best regards,
Scriptor




Sources:

[1] Kunstmarkt: Pietronella Peters - Die junge Künstlerin Anna Peters
an der Staffelei
http://www.kunstmarkt.de/pages/auk/auktionen_detailansicht.html?id=9591

[2] Auktionshaus Michael Zeller: Einige Highlights der 89. Int.
Bodensee - Kunstauktion Juni/Juli 2006
http://www.zeller.de/Einige_Highlights_der_89__Int.326.0.html

Artnet: Pietronella Peters
http://www.artnet.de/artist/595615/pietronella-peters.html

Geschichtsverein Köngen: Die Malerin Anna Peters in Köngen
http://geschichtsverein-koengen.de/Peters.htm


Search terms used:
"pietronella peters"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&newwindow=1&q=%22pietronella+peters%22&btnG=Suche&meta=
"Pieter Francis Peters"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=%22Pieter+Francis+Peters%22&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

---

Request for Answer Clarification by smilemaker-ga on 05 Aug 2006 17:20 PDT

Thanks so much. Can you give me any advice if I were to sell ? Does
any established art dealer/broker suffice? Or is it better to go to a
big autioneer, in this case it looks like an Eurpean one would be
best? If the history of a painting is in Europe does that mean it
would  probably fetch a better price there than in America? And why
the difference in price between

a)Two little Girls with a Doll",which was sold for 5600 Euros 
and
b)portrait of her sister Anna  was sold for 18,000 Euros.....because
it was her sister??

thanks

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 06 Aug 2006 14:33 PDT

I just noticed that the first part of my answer is missing; I'd like
to apologize for this. Here is the missing text:

"With the help of special graphics software, I managed to decipher the
signature on the painting depicting the group of children. It reads:
"Pietronella Peters".

Through research, I found out that Pietronella Peters was a female
German painter. She was born in 1848 in the city of Stuttgart. She
came from a family that was deeply connected with the arts: Her father
was the Dutch landscape painter Pieter Francis Peters (1818-1903), her
uncle Christian Mali (1832-1906) would become a famous painter of the
"Munich School" in the late 1860s, her sister Anna (1843-1926), famous
for her flower paintings, was one of the first professional female
artists in Germany. She died in 1924 in Stuttgart-Sonnenberg."

As for your clarification request, I'll try to find information as
soon as possible.

Regards,
Scriptor

Dear smilemaker-ga,
I've taken what I think is a pretty good guess at one of them, and if
I am right there may be some information on other paintings by the
artist. However, there is no signature to compare.
Could be H.Sherborne. Here are some links
http://www.artnet.de/artist/640837/h-sherborne.html
Links to two pictures (but sadly no image)
This one
http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=47EF0ADFBF7C80EB
Google cache only - no image
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:7KECqDx3CM0J:www.brightwells.com/Catalogues/Ae020904/page18.htm+%22h+sherborne%22&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=11

We often get questions like this on GA and it is very difficult to
research them, but I hope this helps. My colleagues can include this
as part of their answer if they identify the other artist.

answerfinder-ga