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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sep 22, 2021 | Bonhams | London | 19th Century and British Impressionist Art | 81 | $****** - ****** | The Barle river, Withypool, Exmoor |
paintings
17.5 x 24 cm (6.89 x 9.45 in)
oil on panel
signed 'A.J.Munnings' (lower right); inscribed with title (in pencil, on reverse)
Private collection, UK.
Munnings' childhood upbringing in a mill house on a river, instilled a lifelong affinity to the sounds and sights of moving water. In fact, throughout his memoirs, there are frequent references to the artist's longing to sit by a river and paint. The solitude and his subsequent contemplation of Nature was his spiritual solice and there are over seventy river scenes in his home at Castle House, Dedham today. As a painter of light, it is no wonder that Munnings was drawn to the river near Brightworthy at various times of the day where he could examine the play of light on the fractured water surface.
Munnings was so intrigued by the shifting light effects on the river and hill beyond that he returned to the exact spot on numerous occasions; the artist positioned himself at the site using the rock in the middle of the river as a pivot point or central vignette, painting it on the left or right of the various scenes. Altering the time of evening and cloud formations, he captured the reflected colour changes on the water and distant hill.
This examination of light's shifting chiaroscuro and colour patterns on a constant motif was a practice Claude Monet used in painting haystacks, the cathedral facade at Rouen and of course his lilypads.
For a similar composition, see Brightworthy Ford, Withypool, Exmoor, sold in these rooms, 31 March 2021, lot 77.
We are grateful to Lorian Peralta-Ramos for her assistance in cataloguing this lot. The Brightworthy series will be discussed in Lorian Peralta-Ramos' forthcoming book Tradition and Modernity: The Work of Sir Alfred Munnings to be published in 2022.
Sir Alfred James Munnings, PRA, RWS (British, 1878-1959)
The Barle river, Withypool, Exmoor
signed 'A.J.Munnings' (lower right); inscribed with title (in pencil, on reverse)
oil on panel
17.5 x 24cm (6 7/8 x 9 7/16in).
