SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., HON. R.A. | Schloss Schleissheim, near Munich

Bequeathed by the Artist to Arabella Churchill

David Coombs, Churchill: His Paintings, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1967, cat. no.139, illustrated p.134;
David Coombs and Minnie S. Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill His Life and His Paintings, Ware House Publishing, Lyme Regis, 2011, cat. no.139, illustrated p.150.

Compiled by Alex France at Hamish Dewar Ltd., 22/05/2018:Structural ConditionThe artist's canvas board is slightly bowed with a concave profile. The canvas appears securelyattached to the underlying board support.Paint SurfaceThe paint surface has an even varnish layer.There are very fine diagonal lines of craquelure within the sky towards the upper part of theleft edge. These appear entirely stable.Inspection under ultraviolet light shows a very small vertical area of spots and lines ofretouching within the architecture towards the centre of the left edge, a few small spots ofretouching within the sky in the upper left quadrant, and a few further spots of retouchingwithin the foreground towards the lower left corner. It should be noted that these retouchingsare all of minimal size.SummaryThe painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition.Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these works will be gifted to the Charity that Arabella Churchill started, Children’s World.

We are grateful to David Coombs for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

In 1932, the year this work was painted, Churchill undertook a tour of the battlefields of the Duke of Marlborough in Belgium, Holland and Germany as research for his biography on his great ancestor. Before exploring the site of the Battle of Blenheim, he spent three days in Munich, and it is most likely that it was during this trip that he painted two views of the 17th-century Baroque palace of Schloss Schleissheim, the second version of which is in the collection of the National Trust. The palace was a summer residence of the Bavarian rulers of the house Wittelsbach and comprises three individual palaces situated in a baroque garden, laid out by Dominique Girard. Churchill has chosen to focus his composition on the New Palace begun under Max Emmanuel in 1701-1704 and completed by Joseph Effner. Only the main wing of a four-wing design was ever finished. The result is nevertheless an outstandingly beautiful Baroque palace. Churchill, however, has made this monumental Schloss the background to his composition, allowing the baroque court garden, with its ornate statues, to dominate the foreground. Churchill, who painted several of the stately homes which he visited, would often be drawn more to the gardens than to the buildings in his compositions. As he mentioned in Painting as a Pastime, formal gardens particularly appealed to him: he delighted in the 'sunlit garden gleaming with light and colour' and how ‘every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems' (Winston Churchill quoted in Coombs and Churchill, 2011, op. cit., p.70).