JOHN ATKINSON GRIMSHAW | Night Scene in Roundhay Park

Thomas Agnew & Sons, London;

Phillips, Leeds, 16 October 1991, lot 268;

Christopher Wood Gallery, where purchased in 2009 by the present owner

'...the lake is seen from the ivy fringed battlement of the ruined tower, and appears in the deceptive haze to stretch unbroken to the horizon; the interlocking boughs of the near trees, in their winter nakedness, being carefully painted; while the more distant clumps are broadly massed in purple shadow.' Leeds Mercury describing a version of the present composition.

Grimshaw painted several views of Roundhay Park on the outskirts of Leeds from 1872 onwards until his death. His first three paintings of the park were commissioned by a committee of the House of Lords in connection with an application by the Corporation of Leeds to purchase Roundhay Estate to make it a public park. The purchase was successful and the park was opened to the public on 19 September 1872 by Prince Arthur.

In the early nineteenth century the architect John Clarke designed a folly at Roundhay in the form of a medieval castle which had a wooden roof so that dinners could take place overlooking the glorious parkland. It was from the ramparts of this folly that Grimshaw painted Waterloo Lake, a thirty-three acre reservoir built in just two years by soldiers that had returned from the Napoleonic wars.