East Anglian Marsh. Keeley Halswelle ARSA, RI 1832-1891. Oil on canvas,13.5 x 23.5 inches. Provenance: Wyndham Halswelle, the artist's son. Courtesy of the Maas Gallery. Click on image to enlarge it.
“In 1894, all three paintings in our catalogue by this artist — Gibraltar, East Anglian Marsh, and Skye — were in the collection of the railway magnate Sir John Pender, who knew Halswelle well, and whose collection was dispersed in 1897. Labels on the back of East Anglian Marsh and Skye identify the new owner as the artist’s son Wyndham Halswelle (1882-1915).
Wyndham was an Olympic athlete, and the only one to have won an Olympic title by a walkover (the 400m), because of a ruling of obstruction contested by other runners — thereafter, races were run in lanes. Halswelle Snr was brought up in Richmond, Surrey, but began his career in Edinburgh and did not exhibit at the RA in London until he was 30. He was a skilled but initially rather conventional figure painter, especially of Italian subjects, but in the 1880s he started to paint landscapes of Scotland and the Thames Valley in a looser, marvellously dramatic manner. He lived on a houseboat, painting hundreds of plein air sketches, many of which have ended up in the V&A and the National Gallery.” — Maas Gallery
The Maas Gallery, 15a Clifford Street, London W1S 4JZ has most generously given its permission to use in the Victorian Web information, images, and text from its catalogues, and this generosity has led to the creation of many valuable documents on painting and drawing. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with the Gallery. Readers should consult their website to obtain information about recent exhibitions and to order their catalogues. [GPL]
Created 26 February 2018