Reginald Arthur

Reginald Arthur was active in London in the 1890s, painting Egyptian, biblical, and classical narrative subjects. Sotheby's cataloguing notes record that he lived at 47 Bedford Square, close to the British Museum, and that its collections shaped his subject matter; one of his earliest recorded exhibits was titled A Bit from the British Museum, though the venue and exact year are not documented. His known works include The Death of Cleopatra, Pharaoh's Daughter, signed and dated 1896, and Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh's Dream.

Reliable birth and death dates for this artist have not been confirmed. Several online reference sources, including a Wikimedia Commons category and a Wikipedia file page for The Death of Cleopatra, attach the dates 1871 to 1934 and a death by drowning in the River Wharfe near Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, and list "Arthur Reginald Smith" as a birth name. Closer comparison of auction and biographical records indicates that Arthur Reginald Smith (1871 to 1934) was a separate landscape painter from Skipton, trained at Keighley School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and catalogued distinctly from Reginald Arthur in auction-market sources such as Sotheby's and MutualArt. Masterworks Academy treats the life dates of Reginald Arthur, the painter of Egyptian and biblical subjects, as unconfirmed pending primary-source verification, and does not carry over Arthur Reginald Smith's biography to this page.

No verbatim assessment from a named critic writing in a major outlet has been located for Reginald Arthur. The most substantive descriptive source available is Sotheby's own cataloguing note, which identifies Egyptian subjects as his speciality and singles out The Death of Cleopatra and Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh's Dream as among his strongest compositions. No museum retrospective, monograph, or scholarly catalogue treatment has been identified.

The auction record for Reginald Arthur is not confirmed by available sources. The only documented Sotheby's appearance is a 2016 London sale (sale L16132, lot 22, Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art) for Pharaoh's Daughter, signed and dated 1896, carrying a catalogue estimate of GBP 30,000 to 50,000; the realized price and exact sale date are not stated in available records. Two earlier London sales are documented by title and date without a confirmed hammer price: The Death of Cleopatra at Christie's London on 12 June 2002 (lot 48), and Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh's Dream at Christie's London on 25 October 1991 (lot 65). No other public sale results have been identified. No gallery or estate representation is documented for this artist.

Reginald Arthur's public sale history is extremely thin: only three documented auction appearances across more than two decades, and none with a confirmed hammer price. There is no catalogue raisonne, no current gallery or estate representation, and no confirmed museum holdings under his name. Collectors should also be aware that some online databases, including Wikimedia Commons, attach a different artist's biography, life dates, and cause of death (the landscape painter Arthur Reginald Smith, 1871 to 1934) to search results for "Reginald Arthur." Any provenance, biographical claim, or title attached to a work offered as "Reginald Arthur" should be checked directly against auction house catalogue records such as those from Sotheby's and Christie's rather than aggregator metadata.