Lot 16
  • 16

Charles Conder

Estimate
30,000 - 40,000 AUD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Charles Conder
  • BLOSSOMS, CHANTEMESLE
  • Signed CONDER (lower right); bears signature, title and date Charles Conder / Vetheuil / 1983 (on reverse on stretcher bar)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 36.5 by 64cm

Provenance

Mrs Florence Humphrey, London
Mr R.E.A. Wilson, London
Mr Carlos Peacock, London
Tom Silver Gallery, Melbourne
Purchased from the above in 1984

Exhibited

Charles Conder, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 June-17 August 2003; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 6 September-9 November 2003; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 21 November 2003-26 January 2004, cat. 47

Literature

Ann Galbally and Barry Pearce, Charles Conder, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1993, p. 119 (illus.)

Condition

There is scattered fly-spotting across the surface of the picture and it would benefit from a light clean. The work is otherwise in good stable condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

In the late 1890s Conder was constantly on the move between and around England and France. The spring and summer of 1898 he spent in the company of the illustrator and watercolourist Arthur Cadogan Blunt, 'enjoying the heat and purest country air at the place on the Seine near my old haunts', the picturesque villages of Vétheuil, Chantemesle and La Roche Guyon, where he had painted in 1892-1893. Writing to William Rothenstein in London, Conder enthused: 'the Spring is here – the corn is yellowing – the nightingale sings in the garden of this house I occupy with my friend Blunt & we work hard and are cheerful when it doesn't rain.'1

The present work, an image of a tree in explosive blossom at the centre of a courtyard, has been identified as 'showing the garden and house at Chantemesle ...where Conder stayed with ... Arthur Blunt.'2  The fruit tree in blossom had been a favourite image for the artist since his painting holiday at Griffith's Farm, Richmond in August 1888, the campaign which produced Herrick's blossoms (1888, National Gallery of Australia), Spring time (1888, National Gallery of Victoria) and The farm, Richmond, New South Wales (1888, National Gallery of Victoria). After he left Australia, blossom trees reappeared in his Seine Valley works of the early 1890s such as Springtime (1892, Tate), Morning twilight (1893, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and Blossoms at Dennemont (1893, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), and they would recur yet again in the impressionist Blossoms – an apple orchard in Brittany (circa 1902, Art Gallery of New South Wales).

It is not surprising that Conder should have been so attracted to the motif, and not just as rococo or japoniste decoration. The delicacy and exuberance and effervescence of spring blossom were echoed in the beauty, excess and brevity of the artist's own life.

The present work is possibly identifiable with a painting (simply entitled Blossoms) which was shown at the first exhibition of the International Society of Sculptors, Paintings and Gravers, London, 1898.

We are most grateful to Ann Galbally for her assistance in cataloguing this work.

1.  Letter, Charles Conder to William Rothenstein, 25 May 1898, quoted in Ann Galbally, Charles Conder: the last bohemian, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2002, p. 191
2.  Ann Galbally & Barry Pearce, Charles Conder, Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2003, p. 119