Lot 118
EDWARD ATKINSON HORNEL (SCOTTISH 1864-1933)
EASTER EGGS
£16,380
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Session | 7th December 2023 at 18:00
Description
Signed and dated 1901, oil on canvas
Dimensions
Provenance
Provenance: William Davidson (1861-1945) and thence by descent to the present owner;
Lot 106 in the 1912 sale of Mr Hope Paterson, Esq., Viewforth, Stirling (sold for 78 guineas);
Acquired from Ian MacNicol, Glasgow by William Davidson for his son, Cameron Davidson, in 1932
Footnote
Exhibited:Stirling Fine Art Exhibition, 1910
Note: William Davidson (1861–1945) was a Glasgow-based businessman and a great patron of the arts. His collection came to include work by ‘The Four’, namely Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Frances Macdonald MacNair and James Herbert MacNair and many of the ‘Glasgow Boys’, including George Henry, E. A. Hornel, W. Y. McGregor and E. A. Walton. Davidson was a particular supporter of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and John Quinton Pringle. Many important works from his collection are now in the holdings of the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.
In a letter of 7 April 1932 from Ian MacNicol to Cameron Davidson, he stated about Easter Eggs: ‘I have dispatched to you today one oil painting ‘Easter Eggs’ by E. A. Hornel complete in case on the instruction of your father Mr Davidson & trust it will arrive in good condition. Will you please keep the packing case as it is not worth the expense returning, also when hanging the picture a good strong cord is as good as anything. The picture is a very good example of Mr Hornel’s work and a very appropriate present at this time of the year, Easter.’
Easter Eggs is an exquisite work, emerging now from an important private collection for the first time in its history. By 1901, Hornel was an established artist, and an internationally regarded one. By the end of the 1890s he had exhibited in cities as scattered as Barcelona and Philadelphia. Most notable of all, perhaps, was a travelling US exhibition which exposed the work of the Glasgow Boys to American audiences in St Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago and New York. 1899-1902 was a period of evolution in his work, and the moment in which he was able to access a broader appreciation from the buying public. His painting, though still heavily decorative and inventive in terms of structure and paint application, became more naturalistic than the innovative but challenging work of the 1880s and early 1890s. The children depicted have more finely drawn faces and his palette became more muted and rooted in reality. Critics and the public responded to these developments extremely favourably and he began to earn a good living.
In Easter Eggs, the instantly recognisable broad handing of his characteristically dry pigment in mosaic-like strokes shows an artist in the full, confident stride of his mature style. Hornel utilised technological advancements to support his process, taking multiple staged photographs of children local to his home in Kirkcudbright to aid his compositional arrangements and as a source of reference. This approach enabled him to light his subjects just so, as well as ameliorating the difficulties inherent in trying to pose young children for any length of time in a studio setting. Then, the faces and physical details of his subjects would be rendered in the studio in smooth, precise detail, with the textured elements of the surrounding scene often then completed en plein air. This interesting, phased approach is evident in the different handling of both aspects of the composition. Our eyes, as viewers, take time to range over this richly varied terrain with its intricate frieze of flora in the background and the daringly minimal brushwork of the foreground. The whole effect is at once photographic and dreamlike.
1901 was the year Hornel acquired Broughton House in Kirkcudbright which one can still visit as a museum to this day. It was also the year that he was, upon nomination by his Glasgow Boy peers, elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy. To the anger of the Academy and consternation of his friends, Hornel declined the honour, stating in his letter of response, “I have been very happy as plain Hornel and I mean to remain such as far as these trumpery affairs are concerned.” Hornel, we can glean, was as single-minded in these matters as he was committed to his distinctive artistic vision.
