Lot 171: Paul Peel 1860 - 1892 Canadian oil on canvas Meditation

Paul Peel 1860 - 1892 Canadian oil on canvas Meditation
24 x 20 inches 61 x 50.8 centimeters signed and dated 1883 and on verso titled Literature:Victoria Baker, Paul Peel: A Retrospective 1860 - 1892, London Regional Gallery, 1986, the 1883 canvas Reading the Future, in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, reproduced page 113
Provenance:Acquired directly from the family of the Artist, circa 1926 - 1927 by a Private Collector, Ontario
By descent to the present Private Collection, Montreal Paul Peel was a prominent nineteenth-century Canadian painter who spent a great deal of time abroad before his premature death at the age of 32. After receiving training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Peel departed for Paris in 1881, where he established a studio and took instruction from Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des beaux-arts. Peel's work was influenced by two major schools of artistic thought: academic Salon painting and the new freedom of Impressionism. Peel's focus was primarily on figure painting, and both these schools' impact can be seen in this alluring painting. It is a formally posed studio work, yet a strong sense of white light - a tenet central to Impressionism - which he developed in his plein air sketches, is manifest here. Family members were often used as models for Peel's work, and this is likely one of his sisters - the young woman bears a strong resemblance to Clara Louise, who posed for his 1883 painting Reading the Future. With its luminosity, soft pastel palette and exquisite rendering of skin tones, Meditation is a tender and beautiful work.