Lot 154
ARTHUR MELVILLE A.R.S.A., R.S.W., A.R.S. (SCOTTISH 1855-1904)
OLD ENEMIES
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 109 to 207 | Thursday 04 December 2025 from 6pm
Description
Signed and dated 1880, oil on canvas
Dimensions
165cm x 112cm (65in x 44in)
Provenance
James Thomson Tullis, Glasgow
Private Collection, Scotland
Exhibited:
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Annual Exhibition, 1881, no.712
Royal Academy of Arts, London, Summer Exhibition, 1882, no.199
Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Aberdeen Society of Artists, 1893
Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, Annual Exhibition, 1905, no.106
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, London, Exhibition of the Collected Works of Arthur Melville RWS ARSA, January-February 1906, no.18
Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, Exhibition of the Works of Arthur Melville RWS ARSA, 1907, no.123
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Arthur Melville: Adventures in Colour, 10 October 2015 - 17 January 2016, no.7, illustrated in colour p.38
Literature:
Agnes Mackay, Arthur Melville: Scottish Impressionist 1855-1904 with a Catalogue of his Works, F. Lewis, Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, no.207
Footnote
In 1878, Arthur Melville travelled to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. During this period, he took the opportunity to explore the surrounding countryside, visiting small French towns such as Granville, Cancale, and Grez-sur-Loing. There, he closely observed the daily lives of local villagers, which would come to influence much of his early work.
Melville was greatly inspired by the French Barbizon School, particularly artists like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet, who pioneered the depiction of peasant workers in rural landscapes. He was also influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage, known for his naturalistic approach and his practice of painting en plein air. These influences are evident in Old Enemies of 1880. This large-scale genre painting, which was likely based on sketches done at the time, captures a dramatic moment in a rural French marketplace. In the scene, the mother protectively shields her two young children from an approaching flock of turkeys. The frightened expressions on the children’s faces, especially the young girl clutching her mother’s hand, gives the work a strong emotional charge. The mother’s defensive posture, standing firmly between the birds and her children, heightens this sense of tension.
The woman’s clothing, along with the backdrop of medieval-style buildings, grounds the painting in a specific regional and historical context. Old Enemies is considered one of Melville’s most important early works both in the French realist style, as well as through his use of oil paint. It marked a turning point in his career as it was his first major oil painting to be exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1881 (no.712), and subsequently at the Royal Academy in London in 1882 (no.199). Whilst on display at the former it was even noted that the painting was hung on the ‘line’, meaning at eye-line, which was saved for what the Academy deemed the strongest works in the exhibition.
