‡ RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (BRITISH 1802-1828) LANDSCAPE WITH SUNSET AND FIGURES Oil on canvas 23 x 35cm (9 x 13¾ in.)Provenance: Probably, acquired directly from the artist by Louis-Joseph August Coutan (1779-1830), and by inheritance to his wife Lucienne Hauguet (1788-1838) Thence by inheritance to her brother Ferdinand Hauguet (d. 1860), and by descent to his son Maurice-Jacques-Albert Hauguet (1819-1883) Thence by descent, Villa Lucienne, Antibes, until 1996 Talabaron & Gautier, Paris, by 2002 Daniel Katz, London From whom acquired by Richard L. Feigen, 2003Literature: B. Talabaron and B. Gautier, Le Paysage Français de Valenciennes à Bonnington, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2002, cat. no. 33, reproduced P. Noon, Richard Parkes Bonnington: The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London, 2008, p. 252, cat. no. 202, reproduced in colour P. Noon, ed. Richard Parkes Bonnington, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2018, unpaginated, cat no. 8, reproduced in colourExhibited: Paris, Talabardon & Gautier, Le Paysage Français de Valenciennes à Bonington, 18 September - 26 October 2002, no. 33 New York, Richard L. Feigen & Co., Richard Parkes Bonington, 23 October - 18 December 2018, no. 8 Richard Parkes Bonington was born in the village of Arnold just outside Nottingham in 1802, but emigrated to France with his family aged fifteen. He was an artist with a precocious talent, extreme sensibility of colour and a profound fluidity of touch. Bonington is considered a hero of the Romantic movement, his legend secured when he died tragically young, aged only 25, his painting career spanning a single decade. He was revered on both sides of the English Channel and hugely influential upon contemporaries and followers alike. French collectors embraced the 'British' medium of watercolour, in which Bonington painted primarily until his first triumph at the Paris Salon in 1824, enthusiastically. He was also well received by the British Art institutions, perhaps most gratifying to the young artist was the patronage of Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy, whom he visited a few months before his final illness and untimely death. Lawrence headed the funeral procession in September 1828 and despite spending most of career in France he was celebrated by the British Art establishment as one of their own, the question of his nationality contested for a long while by both English and French commentators. As we can see in the present painting Bonington excelled in his depiction of the countryside and coastal views, Allan Cunningham in his Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 1830, wrote, 'his chief pleasure was in making drawings of sea-coast and river-side scenery: to blend land with water, and both with cloud and sky, was a favourite scene.' He is revered for his ability to transfer light and atmosphere of Venice and French coastal and countryside scenes onto millboard and canvas distilling the essential qualities of place and time into paint. This atmospheric oil sketch has been dated by Noon, loc.cit. to the early months of 1826. On 4 April 1826 Bonington left Paris for his tour of Italy with his friend and pupil Baron Charles Rivet, returning to Paris by 6 July. Noon notes the present work's similarity to Landscape with Timber Wagon, Wallace Collection (op,cit. no. 199) which stylistically shows a familiarity with the works of both J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and John Constable (1776-1837) evident in the striking sunset and the characteristic accents of red paint. The present work is an excellent example of Bonington's technique, applying thin washes of oil paint with the same light touch that he would use in his watercolours and subtly building up the planes of colour to produce the glow of the sunset over the open landscape that gently recedes into a haze on the horizon. Bonington approached oil painting as a watercolourist, his peer Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) wrote of Bonington's technique to the art historian Théophile Thoré-Bürger in 1861, 'To my mind one can find in other modern artists qualities of strength and precision in rendering that are superior to those in Bonington's pictures, but no one in this modern school, and perhaps even before, has possessed that lightness of touch which, especially in watercolours, makes his works a type of diamond that flatters and ravishes the eye, independent of any subject and any imitation.'The first owner of the paintings was Louis-Joseph-Auguste Coutan (1779-1830), a close friend of artists Baron Gros (1771-1835) and Delacroix and a successful fabric manufacturer and wholesaler. Toward the end of his life, Coutan spent his fortune decorating his Parisian home on the Place Vendôme with works by living artists both commissioning and purchasing contemporary art with no regard for school or nationality. After his death four paintings by Bonington were listed in his sale in 1830, but others descended through the family until 1996 when purchased by the present owner. Condition Report: The canvas has not been lined and is a little slack and starting to undulate. Rubbing and abrasions to the framing edges, with some very minor spots of loss. Craquelure throughout. Inspection under UV light reveals some very light in-filling, which has been sensitively done, and is largely confined to the lower half of the canvas. The attached backboard verso, has not been removed whilst completing this condition report.Condition Report Disclaimer
