Antiques Trade Gazette 43

Early Nevinson emerges as pick of Bunch

ANOTHER work evocative of the short- lived British Futurist movement emerged in Pennsylvania last month.

This was Canal at Ghentby

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

(1889-1946) which was offered at

William Bunch Auctions (17% buyer’s

premium)in Chadds Ford on April 13. The 2ft 5in x 22in (74 x 56cm) oil was consigned by a grandson of Charles Hovey Pepper (1864-1950), a member of the so- called Four Boston Painters founded in 1913. Like Nevinson, all members of the quartet were graduates of the Académie Julian in Paris.

This scene of three men straining on a

rope against the backdrop of industrial warehouses, was very much a transitional work for Nevinson. The scholar Michael J. Walsh, who was consulted on the picture, thought it dated to around 1912-13 and described it as a “stepping-stone” towards the artist’s mature style. Futurism and the Great War – the two defining influences of Nevinson’s art – were still to come. Interestingly, it is signed only R.

Nevinson(rather than the CRW Nevinson

that appears on later works) more evidence, thought Walsh, that Nevinson had “not yet fully identified his artistic persona.”

although others have been offered by the London trade. Interest prior to the May 8 sale

prompted Fieldings to think more in terms of £3000-4000, but by sale day all six phones lines were booked and bidding opened at £9000.

A phone-versus-commission contest

edged Kerrs

of the painter best known for portraits of literary figures in Edwardian Britain and naturalistic landscapes. However, the most valuable of the four by some stretch was an unusual subject and style for the artist, depicting, as it did, Hindu pilgrims bathing in the Ganges at Varanasi, then called Benares. Entitled

Bathers on the Ghats, Benares, the 2ft 6in

x 3ft 2in (76 x 96cm) oil on canvas was estimated at £2000-3000 but sold at £6200.

While one of the artist’s Gloucestershire farm scenes failed to sell against an £800-1200 estimate, a painting of two women sewing took £750 and one of two young men made £820.

Alex Capon

Above: Bathers on the Ghats, Benares by Sir William Rothenstein – £6200 at Sworders.

ran to £37,000 at which point the commission bidder was out and another bidder stepped in. The final price was £51,000 and the successful buyer was British. The price looks to be an auction record for a Grosvenor School linocut.

Anne Crane

It was doubtless for this reason that the London trade who might have been expected to buy such a picture considered the $60,000-90,000 estimate a little punchy.

After a collector from the West Coast and a London gallery chased the painting to $55,000, one of Bunch’s regular customers prevailed with a bid of $60,000

(£40,820). Exchange rate: £1 = $1.47

Roland Arkell

LIFELONG friends Albert Marquet (1875- 1947) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

first met in 1890 when studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The older Matisse took Marquet under his wing and the pair’s similarly bold and decorative early works, painted in pure colour, have led some to describe them as the ’original Fauves’. From 1906, Marquet began the first of his extensive travels, through Europe, Russia and North Africa, where he lived in Algiers from 1940 to 1945. These settings provided the subject matter for his later, more Impressionist paintings for which he is best known and which form the focus

of Connaught Brown’s 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Albert Marquet, which opened

last week and runs until June 28 at the 2 Albemarle Street gallery in London W1S. Marquet is a particular favourite of Connaught Brown’s founder, Anthony Brown, hence the decision to mark the gallery’s 25th year with a show of his work. They previously hosted Voyages, an exhibition of the French artist’s travelling sketches in 2008, and have put together the current show relatively quickly to coincide with their anniversary, accumulating 14 oils, a watercolour and five ink drawings from various sources across Europe. Prices range from £3000 for some of the works on paper to about £400,000 for the larger oils. Although Marquet’s work is obviously particularly popular in France, Connaught Brown also find that it attracts strong interest among British, American, German and Swiss collectors. Marquet’s landscapes have performed well at the Modern and Impressionist sales too, with the record standing at a premium-inclusive £1,217,250 for La Plage de Sainte-Adresse, a c.1906 oil, at Sotheby’s London in 2008. Contact 0207 4090362 www.connaughtbrown.co.uk

galleries@ antiquestr adegazette .com

Above: Le Bassin Devant La Chambre de Commerce, c.1927-30, oil on canvas by Albert Marquet, 20in x 2ft (51 x 61cm) – around £200,000-300,000 from Connaught Brown.

Up to the Marquets again

Anna Brady

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