Harold Harvey 1874-1941

Peter Ridson and Pauline Sheppard, Harold Harvey, Painter of Cornwall, 2001, p. 91, repr. p. 151, cat. no. 320

STRUCTURE This picture is unlined and in very good condition. CATALOGUE COMPARISON The illustration is broadly representative. PAINT SURFACE The surface is in good condition with bright colouring and stable paint surface throughout. There are no signs of craquelure and the paint surface appears to be clean. The picture is ready to hang. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are very minor flecked retouchings in the upper right corner and along the top and bottom edge where the paint surface has been rubbed by the rebate of the frame. FRAME This picture is contained in a moulded plaster frame.
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The diminutive village of Mousehole has been a thriving fishing port since the fifteenth century and was raided by the Spanish in 1595 when only one house was left standing. Part of the south quay dates from 1390 and is possibly the oldest in Cornwall. By the nineteenth century Mousehold supported its own fishing fleet but due to the narrow mouth of the harbour which made it difficult for the new steam ships to dock there, Newlyn overtook Mousehole as a major harbour towards the end of the century. In 1930 Dylan described Mousehole as 'the loveliest village in England'.

The present picture of the picturesque harbour at Mousehole depicts a very different view of the Cornish port painted by the older generation of artists who painted in and around Newlyn. Such works as Stanhope Forbes' Homealong of 1905 and Walter Langley's Disaster of 1889 (Birmingham City Art Gallery) are set on the quay a Newlyn and several of Forbes' pictures present a similar composition. However Langley and Forbes painted events from the lives of the fishermen and their families during times when existence was more precarious in Cornwall and the fishing industry was more fraught with danger. By the 1920s Mousehole was less reliant on the herring fleet and more dependent on tourism. For the present picture and another painting of 1923 Harvey was careful to exclude the rather ugly pier head crane that had recently been constructed at the harbour mouth.

The harbour at Mousehole had been a particularly favoured location for Harvey's pictures and as early as 1897 he painted Mousehole (unlocated) with lobster pots and boats in the foreground and the quay beyond. In 1908 he painted another Mousehole (private collection) which is a composition similar to those by Forbes of figures awaiting the fleet on the old quay, painted in muted tones. By 1922 when the present picture was painted Harvey's style had changed and he had begun to use unmodulated colour and stylised forms which are similar to the work of Laura and Harold Knight and Dod and Ernest Procter. The geometry of the dinghies and the pattern of the water are similar to Vessels in a Harbour of 1926 in which Harvey condensed the rhythms and contrasts formed by he boats and their reflections in the sea.