JOHN ATKINSON GRIMSHAW | A November Night

Sale: Bonhams, London, March 21, 2006, lot 96, illustrated
Richard Green, London
Acquired from the above

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in excellent condition. The painting is clean. The canvas is unlined. The cracking to the paint layer is very mild and is not any cause for concern. There are no retouches. The work should be hung as is.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In A November Night, the brilliant light of an unseen moon casts shadows along a quiet road, bringing its depths and texture into stark relief. It is an exquisitely crafted painting, exhibiting all of the hallmarks of John Atkinson Grimshaw's mature style and the pleasure he took in depicting a street built for the emerging middle classes of Victorian England. For Grimshaw, the formal and poetic thrust of the composition is undeniably moonlight and its power to transform the mundane into a dream-like vision, giving contemporary scenes the mellowness of time. The very qualities that appealed to the artist's contemporaries continue to entrance modern viewers. In fact, after visiting Grimshaw's studio, James Abbott McNeill Whistler remarked that "I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures" (as quoted in Lionel Lambourne, Victorian Painting, London, 1999, p. 112). While many of Whistler’s best-known nocturnes feature the River Thames, he painted a series of street scenes in the 1870s. Using his suburban neighborhood of Chelsea as his subject, he experiments with the darkness of night and the warm glow of gas light. The pictorial relationship between Grimshaw’s compositions and, for example, Whistler’s Nocturne in Grey and Gold: Chelsea Snow (fig. 1, 1876, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts), is undeniable. Like Whistler, Grimshaw pursued the genre of nocturnes with determination and by 1874, when A November Night was painted, he had established the view of a tree-lined suburban street as a frequent subject (see lot 37). In the present work, Grimshaw is at the height of his creative powers, not just in his unique color harmonies but in the extraordinary skill shown by his painting of the interlocking branches and twigs, the cracks and shadows on the weathered wall and the reflections of moonlight off of the wet earth, trodden by wheels and hoofs.

With the single figure waiting by the road, what might evoke a somber subject is turned by Grimshaw into a nostalgic and enchanting scene.