Lot 255: HENRY HERBERT LA THANGUE R.A. (BRITISH, 1859-1929)

HENRY HERBERT LA THANGUE R.A. (BRITISH, 1859-1929) Provencal Oaks, Bormes, 1913, signed 'H. H. LATHANGUE' lower right, oil on canvas, 21 ¢" x 23 ¢" (see illustration) Provenance: Purchased by Moses Nightingale Esq. (possibly from the Leicester Galleries, London, 1914); thence by descent Exhibited: London, Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Paintings by H. H. La Thangue, R.A., April 1914, no. 9 Brighton, City Art Gallery and Museum, Memorial Exhibition of Works by the Late H. H. La Thangue R. A., September 1930, no. 21 Literature: Anon, Watercolours and Oils at Hazeldene, Crawley, Sussex, 1919, no. 105, as Provencal Oaks, Bormes, 1913 La Thangue established a studio at Bormes, a village eight miles from HyÞres, during the Edwardian years, just before its 'semi-Moorish streets à mellow with age' began to attract itinerant artists. The New Zealand painter, Sydney Lough Thompson, who visited him in 1915 indicates that he was well established in the village prior to the Great War. Thompson appears to have followed in La Thangue's footsteps, painting in Bormes, St Jeannet and Grasse in the 1920s, one of many artists attracted to the region. A travel writer of the twenties noted that it had 'found favour in the sight of many painters who wish to pursue their art beneath the azure skies of the midi, far from the grey winter of Paris or Brittany' (Capt. Leslie Richardson, Things Seen on the Riviera, 1927, p. 25). Known since 1968 as Bormes-les-Mimosas, the town lies at one end of the 'Mimosa Road' which stretches up the coast to Grasse, centre of French perfume production. As is clear from La Thangue's Royal Academy Diploma picture, collecting flowers for perfume became one of the painter's most important themes (McConkey, A Painter's Harvest, 1978, Oldham Art Gallery, no. 31). Exploring cart tracks to discover neglected hillside gardens became his daily routine in the years preceding his solo exhibition of 1914 and many landscapes resulted. Provencal Oaks, Bormes, included in the Leicester Galleries exhibition in 914, shows the small evergreen, shallow-rooted Cork or Kermes oaks native to the area (Comerfield Casey, Riviera Nature Notes, 1903, [2004 ed.], p. 47). Other Nightingale acquisitions such as A Provencal Sea, Bormes, shown at the Royal Academy in 1918, and two further works entitled Provencal Landscape, Bormes, show trees of a similar variety. One of these, identical in size to the present work and painted from a slightly more elevated position overlooking the bay, may have been intended as a companion-piece, A Provencal Landscape, Bormes, c. 1913 (sold Christie's 19 June 1997) (fig 1). Commenting on his work in 1905, the critic of The Academy noted that while 'he delights in the brilliant lights and reflections of southern climesàEvery touch appears to have been put on with a heavily loaded spatula andàhe is scrupulous to give the conflicting colours of reflectionà' The effect gave La Thangue's landscapes a characteristically granular quality which, sometimes reminding the viewer of Monet's work, is quite unique. In common with Monet, La Thangue also appears to have been fascinated by the changing light at different times of the day, although he appears not to have painted these phases from precisely the same angles.