
Peter Rees
Director, Head of Sales
Sold for £89,300 inc. premium
Our 19th Century & Orientalist Paintings specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistDirector, Head of Sales
Provenance
Private collection, UK.
The early 1870s witnessed in particular the development of the 'moonlights' which were to become synonymous with Grimshaw's name. The care which went into the best of these subjects was just as great as that taken by his early Pre-Raphaelite type of paintings.
(Alexander Robertson, Atkinson Grimshaw)
The present lot makes a fine addition to a group of paintings of Roundhay, painted by Grimshaw in the early 1870s. It closely relates to Tree shadows on the Park Wall, Roundhay Park, Leeds, (1872, Leeds City Art Gallery), of which Alex Robertson writes 'moonlight floods down through a tangle of branches, casting shadows over the ... roadway. An eerie light pervades the whole composition', a description that could well be applied to the present lot. Other works in the series include Full Moon behind Cirrus Cloud from the Roundhay Park Castle Battlements and Waterloo Lake, Roundhay Park, Leeds (both 1872).
The Roundhay Park estate was purchased by the Leeds Corporation, with a view to it being opened as a public park, as part of the Leeds Improvement Bill. Grimshaw was commissioned to produce three works to show the appearance of the park and chose to depict the park under moonlight.1
We are grateful to Alexander Robertson for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
1Alexander Robertson, Atkinson Grimshaw, Oxford, 1988 pp. 35-38.