Peter Rees
Director, Head of Sales
Lot 66
John Atkinson Grimshaw(British, 1836-1893)April Weather - Honister Crags
30 – 31 March 2022, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £16,500 inc. premium
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John Atkinson Grimshaw (British, 1836-1893)
April Weather - Honister Crags
signed 'JAtkinson Grimshaw' (lower right), signed, inscribed and dated 'April Weather Honister Crags Atkinson Grimshaw 1868' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
91.5 x 71cm (36 x 28in).
signed 'JAtkinson Grimshaw' (lower right), signed, inscribed and dated 'April Weather Honister Crags Atkinson Grimshaw 1868' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
91.5 x 71cm (36 x 28in).
Footnotes
The present lot is an interesting addition to the small body of paintings produced in Grimshaw's first decade as an artist. In the late 1860s, Grimshaw produced a small group of brightly coloured and minutely detailed landscapes of the Lake District, such as The Vale of Newlands, Cumberland (watercolour, 1868, Private collection.), Ingleborough from under White Scar (oil on canvas, 1868, Bradford Art Galleries and Museums) and Colwith Force (oil on card, 1869+, Christies, London, 9 June 2004, lot 37).
The two most closely related works to the present lot are A Mountain Road, Flood Time (sold in these rooms, 17 November 2004, lot 157) and 'The Seal of the Covenant (oil on canvas, 1868, Leeds City Art Gallery). The first of these, which Alex Roberson has suggested was painted in the same year, 1868, was subtitled Honister series No 3, and the present lot may relate to the same series, no other works sub-titled 'Honister Series' having been identified. In all three works, the treatment of the mountainside and the detailing of the rocks and water are extremely similar, the present lot omitting the rainbow from the composition.
With these earliest of Grimshaw's works we see the clearest demonstration of the Pre-Raphaelite influence in both subject and technique. By 1870, Grimshaw had turned to producing the predominantly moonlit subjects for which he is best known, and while his early work owes the greatest debt to the 'truth to nature' ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites, this reliance upon the direct observation of nature, learned during these early years, remained a fundamental part of the artist's technique.
We are grateful to Alexander Robertson for confirming the attribution to John Atkinson Grimshaw on the basis of photographs and for his assistance cataloguing this lot.
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