About this lot

Description

§ Lionel Edwards, RI (1878-1966) Landscape view near White Roding, Essex with snow on the groundsigned and dated 'Lionel Edwards / 1928' (lower left) and inscribed ' "White Roding Church", Essex / between Row Wood and Mann Wood / looking East' (upper right)gouache on paper35 x 50.5cmProvenance:Commissioned directly from the artist by his friend, John 'Jack' Newman Gilbey (1888-1984) of Glan Avon, Harlow, Essex,Thence by descent to his great-nephewLiterature: Country Life, 22nd December 1950, vol. CVIII, no. 2814, ‘A Sporting Artist at Work – article and photos by Jack Gilbey’, pages untraced; J N P Watson, Lionel Edwards: Master of the Sporting Scene, 1986, pp. 107-111This is the preparatory study of the landscape at White Roding for Lionel Edwards' finished composition (see previous lot) of the Essex hunt. In his account originally published in Country Life in 1950, Jack Gilbey described how he watched Edwards paint the present scene in front of White Roding:“On the day I watched him at work I was very glad of my warm overcoat and scarf, as the Rodings in March can be a very cold spot, especially when one is on the wrong side of the hedge and facing an east wind. I observed that the easel which he had set up swayed considerably, and the drawing-board required the usual piece of string with a weight attached to it to keep it steady. All the time that he was getting things ready I noticed he was constantly looking at his subject. From a somewhat untidy paintbox he drew a line across the drawing-board. This important line set the limit of the foreground. A second line fixed the extent and depth of the landscape in the middle distance, and then, starting from the left, he lightly dotted in the salient features, such as the road, trees and cottages…What interested me particularly, apart from the quickness and sureness with which all this was accomplished, was the space that he allotted to the foreground, the middle distance and the sky – the last named it seemed, monopolised considerably more than two-thirds of the drawing-board. As he worked he smoked incessantly…”Let’s have a go now at this Essex sky,” he suddenly exclaimed. And I remember looking at a cold, grey and featureless sky and wondering how he would transpose this on to his drawing-board. But, like the other details, it apparently presented no difficulties…And so the morning wore on; it was now 12.30 p.m., and he had been working for 2 ½ hours. We motored home for lunch and were back on the scene once more at 2.30 p.m. The second session lasted until 4 o’clock…Conditions were slightly better in the afternoon, and for nearly half an hour the sun made a valiant attempt to warm us, at the same time lighting up the distant scene and bringing into sharp relief the windmill, the church – even the tombstones – and the cottage buildings, a situation which the artist was quick to take advantage of…Before we left, he had written in pencil some notes on the top of the picture and signed and dated it in the left-hand corner. The sketch was complete.” (see Literature, Watson, pp. 107-109).Framed 39.5 x 55cm

Back to lot listings