Francis Danby, A.R.A.

STRUCTURE The canvas has been lined and there is one small patch on the reverse of the canvas, upper right. PAINT SURFACE The painting appears to be in good condition. There is a layer of fresh varnish overall. ULTRAVIOLET Examination under ultraviolet light reveals a horizontal line of retouching to damage, approximately three inches long, to the upper right of the canvas which corresponds to the patching on the reverse. Further examination is prohibited due to the varnish. FRAME Held in a decorative European moulded and gilded frame.
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The present work, recently discovered, is one of two known small works by Danby, both from circa 1835, based on the painting now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 (no. 527) as 'Liensfiord Lake, in Norway; a sudden storm, called a flanger, passing off – an effect which on their lonely lakes occurs nearly every day in autumn'. The other version, painted on panel, was sold in these rooms on 21^st November 1984, lot 71, and now hangs in the Tate collection. By comparison the present version is much broader in the handling and more confidently executed than the previous work. The view is that of the late afternoon on the calm waters of the lake after a heavy storm, the effects of which can still be seen in the sky. What is most striking about the two works, however, is the unusual similarity of their detail, and it is likely that one of the two was the result of a specific commission, with the artist making specific reference to whichever was the primary version.   

Danby travelled for two months in Norway in 1825, with Samuel Jackson and George Cumberland Jnr, and there is a suggestion that he may have been there again in 1840. Despite the artist's first hand knowledge of the country there seems to be no such place as Liensfiord. It is possible that this is an error for Fensfiord, a large fiord north of Bergen, as pointed out by Eric Adams, though Lifjord, part of the Sognefjord north of Rutledal (which is close to other locations Danby is known to have visited) has also been suggested.

Stylistically, however, the painting dates to Danby's long sojourn in Switzerland between 1831 and 1836, when he lived in Geneva from 1832, having spent a year in Rapperswil on the banks of Lake Zurich. Spurning the conventions of Alpine view painting Danby turned to his imagination for inspiration, remembering Norway with affection and referring to it, in a letter to John Gibbons on 25^th October 1832, as 'the country of Ossian, the most picturesque in the world'. It is quite possible therefore that the view is one of three largely imaginary scenes inspired by the landscape of Norway that Francis Greenacre suggests contributed the artist's most personal and original output during his years in Switzerland.