ORILLAS :: Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



Frits Thaulow (Norwegian painter and author) 1847 - 1906
Small Town near La Panne, Belgium, ca. 1905 
oil on canvas
64 x 76.5 cm. (25 3/16 x 30 1/8 in.)
signed 'Frits Thaulow' (lower right)
private collection.

Catalogue Note Bonhams:
In the summer of 1905 Frits Thaulow spent some time with his family at La Panne, a small bathing resort on the Flemish coast. He had acquired a small automobile (one of the first of its kind on the market), and it appears that he went on trips in it to small Belgian towns in the area.

There are three versions of this painting, and on the stretcher of one of the others (sold at Sothebys, London, 27th June 2007, No. 402) there is the inscription «La Panne le 1er Août 1905». The third version was sold at a local auction in the U.S.A. in 2007.

The current version has an interesting provenance, as it was sold at Sothebys, London, on December 4, 1968, No. 149 as a «Stream flowing through a Village», The Property of the late Sir A. Chester Beatty (sold by order of the Executors) with a black and white reproduction in the catalogue.

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) could have bought the work himself from Thaulows dealers in Paris. A Canadian mining millionaire (called the «King of Copper»), he moved back to Europe becoming naturalised British in 1933. Beatty bequeathed part of his collection to the Irish nation in 1956. This extraordinary collection contains approximately 22,000 manuscripts, rare books, miniature paintings, and objects from Western, Middle Eastern, and Far Eastern cultures. In addition he donated his collection of Egyption papyri to the British Museum.

The present lot is typical of the late paintings by Thaulow. It depicts small townhouses by a river, a bridge in the distance with people and green vegetation nearby. It is apparently a composition based on real observation, as was his habit. In the three versions the bridges are all different and the layout of the buildings on the left is also varied. This type of composition seems to have been developed by the artist during his stay at the small town of Quimperlé in Brittany in 1901 and also at Oudenaarde in Belgium in 1901-02.

The current work is slightly larger than the other two versions.

We are extremely grateful to Mr Vidar Poulsson, who has confirmed the authenticity of the present lot from photographs and for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

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Johan Frederik Thaulow was born in Christiania, the son of the wealthy chemist, Harald Thaulow (1815–1881) and Nicoline ("Nina") Louise Munch (1821–1894). Thaulow was educated at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen in 1870–72, and from 1873–75 he studied with Hans Gude at the Baden School of Art in Karlsruhe.

After a stay in Skagen during the autumn of 1879, Thaulow returned to Norway in 1880. He became one of the leading young figures in the Norwegian art scene, together with Christian Krohg and Erik Werenskiold, and helped established the first National Art Exhibit (also known as Høstutstillingen or Autumn Exhibit) in 1882. Many of Thaulow's best known Norwegian scenes are from Åsgårdstrand, which had become an important center for artists and painters dating from the 1880s. Thaulow moved to France in 1892, living there until his death in 1906. Thaulow soon discovered that the cityscapes of Paris did not suit him. His best paintings were made in small towns such as Montreuil-sur-Mer (1892–94), Dieppe and surrounding villages from (1894–98), Quimperle in Brittany in (1901) and Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne in the Corrèze département (1903). Thaulow received a number of honors for his artistic activity, including his appointment as commander of the 2nd Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1905. He received the French Legion of Honor, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus from Italy and the Order of Nichan Iftikhar from Tunisia. He died in Volendam, in the Netherlands. The National Gallery of Norway features 37 of his works. Other prominent displays include The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University.