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• Auction House:
  Leonard Joel
• Sale Name:
  Sunday Fine Art Auction
• Sale Date:
  25 Mar 2012 ~ 2pm
• Lot #:
  90
• Lot Description:
  John Glover
  (1767-1849)
  Leathe's Water, Skiddaw and Saddleback in Distance
  oil on canvas
  75.5 x 111cm
  signed and titled on label attached verso
• Notes:
  John Glover's passion for the English Lake District was such that he visited it many times between 1793 and 1824. In about 1818 he settled at Blawick Farm on Ullswater near Patterdale. Furthermore, when he and his family moved to Van Diemen's Land in 1831, he named his property Patterdale after the village in the Lakes district. Oil paintings, watercolours and numerous sketches bear rich witness to this interest. Notable examples included the watercolour Bridge at Buttermore, c.1806, in the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the oils (Landscape near Ullswater), c.1820, National Gallery of Australia; Ullswater, early Morning, c.1824, Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Goldrill Beck and Place Fell near Ullswater, c.1827, in the collection of Jeffrey Archer. The lakes and rugged mountains of this part of Cumbria had long fascinated poets, painters and writers. Thomas Gainsborough painted there in 1783, as well as Francis Towne and J.M.W. Turner, John Constable toured the Lake District in 1806; and the celebrated Hevellyn, the third highest peak in Britain, inspired William Wordsworth to write: Inmate of a mountain dwelling, Thou hast clomb aloft, and glazed From the watch-towers of Helvellyn: Awed, delighted, and amazed! The views were inspiring if not breathtaking, as seen in Glover's Leathe's Water. Viewed from the south, Raven Crag rises on the western side of Leathe's Water, to the east the mighty Helvellyn, with mounts Skiddaw and Saddleback in the distance. All is bathed in the soft, golden light of late afternoon. The picturesque was in vogue as artists and connoisseurs delighted in the magnificence of the mountain landscape with its touches of the sublime, the rugged wilds contrasted with the orderliness of the pastoral scene. Glover captures this superbly, the supreme clarity and high finish of his paintings enabling the viewer to discern the insignificance of the human endeavour amid the might and beauty of nature - a concept made so popular by the Romantics. A boatman piles the still waters, sheep graze on the grassy slope, and surrounded by trees nearby is what appears to be Dalehead Hall, the ancestral home of the Leath family since the time of Elizabeth I. Dubbed the 'English Claude'. Glover imbued his paintings with a mood of classical order and calm, expressing the nobility of nature found in the grand mountain ranges of this painting, or the pastoral fields of England. His ability to observe and record accurately within the idiosyncrasies of his style is seen throughout this painting. Significantly, the dark serpentine trunks and branches of the foreground trees are harbingers of his sinuous trees of Van Dieman's Land. David Thomas
• Estimate:
  A$70,000 - 90,000
• 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.