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On the Thames, Barnes Signed and dated 1886; signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse Oil on canvas: 24 ¼ x 36 ¼ in / 61.5 x 92 cm Provenance
Private collection, UK Richard Green, London, 1978 Private collection, UK, 1980 Richard Green, London, 1996 Private collection, UK, 1996 Exhibited
London, Richard Green, The Victorian Scene, 1978, no. 34, p. 77 London, Richard Green, John Atkinson Grimshaw, 1998, no. 28 Literature
Alexander Robertson, Atkinson Grimshaw, Phaidon, London, 2000, illustrated no. 105, p. 119 Jane Sellars (ed.), Atkinson Grimshaw: Painter of Moonlight, exh. cat., The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate Borough Council, 2011, p. 84
On loan from a private collection, UK Barnes was an area of London which particularly captured Grimshaw’s imagination, combining elegant, tree-lined streets with a scenic view of the Thames. Accessible only by river or by foot, Barnes was one of the last villages on the outskirts of the capital to remain largely untouched until the nineteenth century. Its picturesque, rural character remains to this day. Grimshaw executed numerous drawings of the riverside, working out the subtleties of colour notes and atmospheric effects, including a rare preliminary sketch for the present work dated September 1886. In the transition from drawing to finished painting, the artist has tightened the composition, straightened the Terrace and stripped the trees of their leaves.
Thames at Barnes, 1886 (pencil and charcoal on paper). Leeds Museums and Galleries (City Art Gallery) UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
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