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T A G  S A L E S

Sir John Lavery RA, RSA, RHA 1856 - 1941



On the Beach, Lido, Venice

Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches
Inscribed on stretcher, Beach with figures;
Verso, stamp, John B. Smith, Hampstead Rd, NW.;
Label, James Bourlet, Nassau St. W; B71840;
no.29 on canvas edge;
MR065 on stretcher.
Provenance:
Katherine Fitzgerald, legatee;
to Katherine Fitzgerald's sister;
by descent to Katherine's niece, 1985;
purchased from above by Pym's Gallery, London, 1985;
Christie's, London, 12th March 1993, Lot 67;
purchased by Max Reinhardt Esq;
thence by family descent.
Literature:
Kenneth McConkey, ‘Towards the Sun’ Holberton Publishing, London, 2021
Reference:
McKonkey, Sotheby's, London, 'The Bathing Hour', 14 November 2024, illustrated.

One of four canvases painted on the Lido during Lavery’s visit to Venice in August 2012, the painting shows Hazel and Alice sitting on the sand in conversation with a figure in a deck chair, perhaps Alice’s nurse. The same three figures appear in The Bathing Hour, albeit in different positions and closer to the water’s edge. The third canvas, Bathing, Lido, Venice is an even more densely populated composition. The fourth work is a simple study of two ladies under parasols at the water’s edge, perhaps Hazel and Diana Manners.

 According to Professor McConkey: At the end of August 1912, after four months confined to his London studio, Lavery wrote to his cousin, Kate Clenaghan, that he had been intensely busy and was ‘feeling the strain’. The newly elected Associate of the Royal Academy had recently been working on portraits of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, and sittings with Lady Diana Manners and Lady Gwendeline Churchill, Winston Churchill’s sister-in-law, were conducted around the same time. He had also been approached by the wealthy publisher, Hugh Spottiswoode, with a commission to paint a presentation portrait of the Royal Family for the National Portrait Gallery, which would mean that his annual winter retreat to Tangier would have to be abandoned. With a break in his schedule at the beginning of September, a brief respite, two weeks at the Lido in Venice was called for.

Lavery had been to the ‘Floating City’ before – for the first time in 1892 when accompanied by his friend, the Glasgow School painter, Alex Roche. Subsequent sojourns were business affairs, connected with the Biennale - most notably in 1910 when he was offered a solo exhibition of 53 works. The 1912 ‘holiday’, when he painted the Lido series, was, however, entirely different in kind and quality. On this occasion, accompanied by his wife, Hazel and stepdaughter, Alice, he stayed in style on the Lido, and although he claimed in 1912 that the break at the Excelsior Hotel would do him good, whether travelling on business or pleasure, Lavery was never without his painting kit. Shortly after their arrival the Laverys discovered that Lady Cunard was already there awaiting the arrival of the Asquiths, while the Duchess of Rutland was holidaying on the Lido with her daughter – and his sitter - Lady Diana Manners. With them was a host of other British and European aristocrats. If one wished to make connections, this was the place to be. The beach, which in 1882, Henry James found ‘lonely and beautiful’, was now dotted with visitors and ‘villainous improvements’. As is clear from these paintings, this was no drawback for a painter whose eye was trained on the random appearance of itinerant Arab traders in the sandy bay at Tangier. Indeed, the profusion of guests on the beach was a positive bonus inspiring Lavery to produce four canvases characterised by remarkable spontaneity.

Peice on Application: dominick@mpfa.ie


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