Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A. 1871-1935

The artist's family;
Edinburgh, Bourne Fine Art;
Private collection;
London, Duncan Miller Fine Art;
Private collection

Edinburgh, Bourne Fine Art, Festival Exhibition, 1988, no. 107

STRUCTURE This picture is in excellent original condition with strong colours throughout and areas of rich impasto. The panel appears to be sound and has not bowed or cracked. The paint surface is clean and there are no signs of craquelure. The picture is ready to hang and requires no restoration or conservation. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are no signs of retouching. FRAME: This picture is contained in a moulded plaster frame and under glass.
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Peploe decided to travel to Cassis early in the summer of 1913 and it was his friend John Duncan Fergusson that first suggested the idea; 'I had grown tired of the north of France; I wanted to go south, to Cassis.' (Guy Peploe, p. 50) Initially Peploe was reticent, feeling that the climate would be too hot for his infant son Bill, but after seeing the work 'Cassis' written on the pavement close to the door of his studio in Paris, he saw it as an omen and joined Fergusson; 'We arrived to find it quite coool and Bill didn't suffer at all. We had his birthday party there and after a lot of consideration chose a bottle of Château-Lafite instead of champagne. Château-Lafite to me now means that happy lunch on the veranda overlooking Cassis Bay, sparkling in the sunshine.' (ibid Peploe, p.51)

Peploe and his wife Margaret and sons Willie and Bill spent an idyllic summer in Cassis with Fergusson and Anne Estelle Rice, much of the time spent on the beach sheltered by the steep pine clad slopes of the mountains that surrounded the small fishing village between Marseille and Toulon. Both Fergusson and Peploe were enchanted by the town with its three storey buildings fronting onto the sea, the quiet and charming hotels and the deep-water harbour that allowed large schooners to moor there to unload their goods. Peploe had not been to the Mediterranean before and was delighted by the brilliant shimmering light, that had inspired Derain and Matisse les than a decade earlier. He was surrounded by a wealth of subjects and painted several views of the deserted back streets with their white painted facades and red tiles roofs, locals gathered in the town square and the wilderness of the wooded slopes. The present elegant painting relates to another view of the same sailed ship moored in the harbour at Cassis with the fortified castle, entitled Schooner, Cassis Harbour (private collection). Fergusson was inspired by the same view and drew a pencil sketch of the same ship with the harbour wall and castle beyond (Sotheby's, Edinburgh, 26 April 2007, lot 88).