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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  28 Oct 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  23
• Lot Description:
  Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd
  (1920-1999)
  Daniel in the Lion's Den
  ceramic tile
  64.5 x 60 cm
  signed 'Arthur Boyd' lower right; titled on Australian Galleries label verso
• Provenance:
  Australian Galleries, Melbourne, purchased 1964; From The collection of the late Alan Boxer
• Exhibited:
  Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne, 1952, cat. no. 14; Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, cat. no. 22; Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, 1953 (group exhibition); Australian Galleries, Melbourne; (Possibly) The Boxer Collection, Albert Hall, Canberra, October - November 1977 (no catalogue); The Boxer Collection: Modernism, Murrumbeena and Angry Penguins, The Nolan Gallery, Tharwa, ACT, 17 December 1981 - 28 February 1982, cat. no. 8
• References:
  Gertrude Langer, 'Watercolours by Victorian: Fine landscape', The Courier Mail, Brisbane, 30 March 1953, p. 6; Franz Philipp, Arthur Boyd, Thames and Hudson, London, 1967, pp. 68, 249, cat. no. 6.12; The Boxer Collection: Modernism, Murrumbeena and Angry Penguins, The Nolan Gallery, Tharwa, ACT, 1981, p. 2
• Notes:
  Arthur Boyd's ceramic works of late 1940s and early 50s hold an important, if circumscribed, position in the artist's oeuvre. It was around this time that Arthur, following in the artistic footsteps of his ceramicist father, Merric Boyd, set up the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery. This was the beginning of a movement which Geoffrey Edwards described as 'one of the most extraordinary chapters in the development of Australian ceramics'.1 As well as producing a large number of decorative and utilitarian wares, a small number of important works of art were conceived and produced in the Pottery. Daniel in the Lion's Den, 1950, belongs to Arthur Boyd's first series of two-dimensional ceramic compositions. While Boyd looked to his father for technical guidance, he studied the art of Rembrandt, Brueghel and Tintoretto for their psychological intensity, dramatic narrative and use of vibrant colour, respectively. These art historical allegiance with the Old Masters is particularly notable in Boyd's biblically themed images. While many examples are direct, unambiguous references, others are more subtle and original.2 Daniel in the Lions' Den, from the Old Testament, tells the story of the Jewish official thrown into a den of lions as punishment for having disobeyed a decree that forbade everyone from praying to anyone but the King. The law in fact was devised by a group of schemers with the intention of charging Daniel with treason. Daniel, however, aided by an angel, escaped the night unharmed. The conspirers, on the other hand, met their ends in the lions' den. As is often the case with Boyd's narrative dramas, the current work does not represent the original literary account with faithful accuracy. Boyd interweaves and overlaps the narrative. The conspirators, now foiled, have been thrown to the lions, the messenger-bird flies out of the composition, the foreshortened figure of Daniel lies face-down in the foreground. The landscape and figures are painted in a rich, and lustrous palette of blue, yellow, green and brown - a quality heightened by the material nature of the ceramic glaze and lead pigments. Janet McKenzie noted how Boyd, in his Biblical works, integrates 'Old Master elements with the Australian landscape'.3 Indeed, in Daniel in the Lion's Den, Boyd substitutes the divine angle sent by God to save him with a sulphur crested cockatoo, and exchanges the dark cavernous enclosure of the lions' den, for the Murrumbeena-like bush. Boyd thus transposes the ancient narrative into a characteristically local environment. Boyd 'automatically set these biblical events in the Australian bush', wrote McKenzie, 'he felt strongly that their being Australian was central to their being valid'.4 Indeed, in Daniel in the Lion's Den, Boyd revisits, contextualises and reinvents old themes for the New World. We are grateful to Caroline Purves for her assistance in cataloguing this work. 1 Geoffrey Edwards, The Painter as Potter, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1982, p. 3 2 Examples of this are evident in Boyd's Susannah (destroyed, formerly at the Grange, Berwick) which is related formally to Rembrandt's Woman Bathing in a Stream (National Gallery, London); Rembrandt is also known to have sketched a composition for the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). The subject was painted by Brueghel as well, and much later, by Paris of School artist, Marc Chagall 3 Janet McKenzie, Arthur Boyd: art & life, Thames & Hudson, London, 2000, p. 68 4 Ibid., p. 76
• Estimate:
  A$30,000 - 40,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.