Spencer Frederick Gore

London, Leicester Galleries, whence acquired circa 1950, and thence by descent to the present owner

London, Carfax Gallery, June-July 1918, no.7 as Dieppe.

The canvas is in good original condition. There are scattered minor spots of craquelure in some of the areas of thicker paint. There are some very tiny scattered white spots of surface matter, and some very tiny flecks of paint loss across the surface of the paint. Examination under ultra-violet light reveals a small area of retouching in the clouds in the upper left quadrant, and another tiny spot in the lower right quadrant. There is some very vague fluorescence along the right edge of the paint surface but this does not appear to be retouching. Held in a gilded and painted composition frame with a white painted slip. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Gore seems to have first visited Dieppe in 1904 whilst on a trip to the Normandy coast with Albert Rutherston and Walter Russell. Rutherston, who knew Sickert through his elder brother, suggested that they visit him there, and thus two of the key figures of what was to become the Camden Town circle met for the first time.

In 1906 Sickert lent Gore his house in Dieppe for the summer, and during this trip he produced a number of studies of the town. This particular view seems to exist in a number of variants, and in the present work we can see Gore gradually exploring the broken brushstrokes and concentrated colour that he so much admired in the paintings of his friend Lucien Pissarro.

Overlooking the Town of Dieppe was listed as no.10 in the notebook Harold Gilman and Mrs Gore compiled of Gore's paintings left in his studio after his death. The label attached to the stretcher, in Harold Gilmans' handwriting, indicates that Gilman and Mrs Gore had reason to believe it was painted in 1906.   

We are grateful to Dr Wendy Baron for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.