Emanuel Phillips Fox

Australian, New Zealand, English and European historical and contemporary drawings and paintings, Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 24–25 May 1973, lot 34

(possibly) Pictures by the late E. Phillips Fox, Fine Art Society's Gallery, Melbourne,  7–11 May 1925, cat. 77 (as An Orchard)

Ruth Zubans, E. Phillips Fox: his life and art, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 1995, p. 228 (cat. 298)

UV inspection confirmed there has been no retouching. This work is in good stable condition with no visible defects.
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In February 1911 Emanuel Phillips Fox and his wife Ethel Carrick Fox made a six week painting trip to Algeria and Morocco, the rich, bright Orientalism of African market and street scenes forming a dramatically distinct body of work within the oeuvre of both artists.  The couple then returned to their home in Paris, travelling through Spain (including visits to Cordoba, Cadiz and Granada) and the south of France.

This fresh, brisk study of an orange harvest is (like many of the Algerian sketches) painted in rapid dashes and swirls of oil on an unprimed blonde wooden panel.  Ruth Zubans's dates it (with a question mark) to circa 1911-1913; given that Spain was then the centre of European orange cultivation and that the northern hemisphere orange harvest continues until March, it seems likely that Zubans dating is accurate, and that the work was painted on that journey through Spain, or from sketches taken at the time.  If this is the case, the present work may be identifiable with An orchard, shown in 1925 and in that exhibition catalogued in between French bathing place (presumably circa 1909 – 1911) and The muslin dress (1912).