- 27
ARTHUR STREETON
Estimate
120,000 - 150,000 AUD
bidding is closed
Description
- Arthur Streeton
- SAN GREGORIO AND THE RIO DELLA SALUTE
- Signed lower left
- Oil on canvas
- 54 by 64 cm
- Painted in 1908
Provenance
Fine Australian and European Paintings, Sotheby's, Melbourne, 24- 25 November 1997, lot 104
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above
Private collection, Sydney; purchased from the above
Catalogue Note
When Arthur Streeton first exhibited his Venice paintings in London to considerable acclaim, a reviewer in the Daily Graphic wrote, 'He has seen Venice in the happiest of circumstances, when her mirror-like waters and the marble-clad facades of her palaces are sparkling in sunlight, but before the season when the heat of the sun has become too oppressive' 1 Streeton had honeymooned with his wife Nora (née Clench) in April 1908. 'What a wonderful place it is' he wrote to an old friend, 'We stayed in a charming place in the Zattere...and I worked hard and did some good pieces' 2
Streeton returned to Venice later that same year, eager to assemble enough major paintings for exhibiting in both London and Melbourne during 1909. This is probably one of several views he painted of the canals around the church of Santa Maria della Salute, included in those exhibitions and listed later in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue. Here the Salute is on the right and the church of San Gregorio on the left across the Rio della Salute. He was tremendously inspired by the effects of light on the water - changing in tone on the lagoon, along the Grand Canal and into the smaller waterways. And he delighted in the warm hues of the old buildings: the mellow pinkish stone of place or church walls and the red terrracotta of rooftops. His brushwork in works such as this is energetic and the resultant paint surface luscious and lively - inspired, at least in part, by the bravura style of John Singer Sargent, who also painted many Venetian subjects around the turn of the century. Venice - the 'Bride of the sea' - was clearly one of the subjects Streeton most enjoyed.
We are most grateful to Oliver Streeton for his assistance in cataloguing this work.
1. Daily Graphic, 6 April 1909
2. 1 July 1908, Quoted in Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of Arthur Streeton in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1994, p. 147
Streeton returned to Venice later that same year, eager to assemble enough major paintings for exhibiting in both London and Melbourne during 1909. This is probably one of several views he painted of the canals around the church of Santa Maria della Salute, included in those exhibitions and listed later in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue. Here the Salute is on the right and the church of San Gregorio on the left across the Rio della Salute. He was tremendously inspired by the effects of light on the water - changing in tone on the lagoon, along the Grand Canal and into the smaller waterways. And he delighted in the warm hues of the old buildings: the mellow pinkish stone of place or church walls and the red terrracotta of rooftops. His brushwork in works such as this is energetic and the resultant paint surface luscious and lively - inspired, at least in part, by the bravura style of John Singer Sargent, who also painted many Venetian subjects around the turn of the century. Venice - the 'Bride of the sea' - was clearly one of the subjects Streeton most enjoyed.
We are most grateful to Oliver Streeton for his assistance in cataloguing this work.
1. Daily Graphic, 6 April 1909
2. 1 July 1908, Quoted in Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of Arthur Streeton in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1994, p. 147