Christie’s have announced that two works from the collection of Australian entrepreneur and Pre-Raphaelite expert John Schaeffer will be offered in the sale of Victorian & British Impressionist Art in London on the 13^th of December 2012.

The Wrestling Scene in ‘As You Like It’ by Daniel Maclise R.A. (1806-1870) and Chivalry by Sir Francis Dicksee P.R.A. (1853-1928) come to auction after a six-month loan to Leighton House for the “Victorian Visions: Pre-Raphaelite and Nineteenth-Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection” exhibition.

Featured on the front cover of the Christie’s catalogue, Chivalry, by Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee, is one of the artist’s most attractive works and is a wonderful embodiment of late Victorian romanticism at its most theatrical and uninhibited (estimate: £600,000 – 800,000).

Maclise’s The Wrestling Scene in ‘As You Like It’ is a rare illustration to Shakespeare on such a scale. The epic painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1855 and is recognised as one of the artist’s finest works (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000).

Over the past 25 years John Schaeffer has been one of the world’s most prominent collectors of British nineteenth-century art.  A major painting from Schaeffer’s collection, Il Dolce Far Niente by William Holman Hunt, is currently on display at the TATE museum as part of their Pre-Raphaelite exhibition.

To view the auction catalogue click here