Lot 93: Henry Herbert La Thangue, R.A. (1859-1929)

Henry Herbert La Thangue, R.A. (1859-1929)
A Brescian lake; Limone, Lake Garda
signed 'H. H. La Thangue' (lower right), inscribed and numbered 'A Brescian Lake/26' (on the reverse of the frame), and inscribed with inscription 'To John Alan Nightingale/from Grandma and Grandpa Nightingale/Golden Wedding Day/April 23-1934/A Brescian Lake, Limone, Lake Garda 1913/H H La Thangue' (on a label on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
25½ x 20¼ in. (64.8 x 51.4 cm.)
painted in 1913

London, Leicester Galleries, Pictures by HH La Thangue RA, April-May 1914, no 33 (as A Brescian Lake)
Brighton Art Gallery, Memorial Exhibition of Works by the Late HH La Thangue, RA, September 1930, no 15

Anonymous, Watercolours and Oils at Hazeldene, Crawley, Sussex, 1919, no. 115.

Moses Nightingale Esq.; to J. A. Nightingale, 1934, and by descent.

In 1913, La Thangue set off from Provence across Northern Italy to Venice, stopping at the village of Limone on Lake Garda. Here the picturesque vines growing by the lakeside provided an appealing tracery that imitated Japanese graphic effects. There were, no doubt, recollections of Corot, some of whose most poetic landscapes were painted on the shores of Lake Garda, and it is possible that La Thangue had heard that John Singer Sargent had stayed for a time at San Virgilio at the southern end of the lake. Garda , where the borders of Trento, Brescia and Verona meet the Brenner Pass, boasted its own 'riviera' coastline and eulogizing the beauties of the region generally, Henry James declared it the place 'to which inflamed young gentlemen invite the wives of other gentlemen to fly with them and ignore the restrictions of public opinion'. For La Thangue however, it was simply 'the deep yellow light that enchants you and tells you where you are' (Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909, New York, Black Cat ed., 1979, p. 91, 104).

K Mc