23rd Mar, 2022 14:00
Property from a Private Collection
WILLIAM HENRY BARTLETT (BRITISH 1858-1932)
Off to the Fair, Connemara
signed and dated W.H.BARTLETT.1887 (lower right)
oil on canvas
50.8 x 76.4 cm (20 x 30 in)
PROVENANCE:
Sale, Christie's, London, 8 November 1996, lot 147
Private Collection
By descent from the above to the present owner in 2006
The son of an art dealer, William Henry Bartlett was only seventeen when he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and in the studio of Gérôme at the École des Beaux Arts. Shortly after completing his studies, Bartlett visited the West of Ireland in 1878 and over the next 10 years or so he made regular Summer visits there. Bartlett based himself in Roundstone, and also painted in Renvyle, in County Mayo, and later in County Donegal.
Bartlett was fascinated by the coastal landscape of the West of Ireland and the lives of the people who lived there. He painted a series of large canvases of people fishing, hunting seals, attending a funeral, gathering seaweed or returning from a fair. The present work depicts a rowing boat transporting cattle, about to leave a rocky cove in Connemara to head to the fair. Five men and women are labouring to push the boat off. Each person is involved in a different activity, holding the cattle down, providing balance with a long oar or steadying the boat.
Off to the Fair, Connemara is typical of the works from Bartlett's West Ireland series; there is a documentary and naturalistic quality to the painting. Bartlett has skillfully captured the summer light, with the men, women and children set against the shimmering water.
Sold for £10,000
Includes Buyer's Premium
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