*AUGUSTUS JOHN (1878-1961) 'The Boys'
depicting three of the artist's sons, Caspar, Pyramus and Romily, in a woodland landscape, signed lower left, oil on board, 30cm x 40.5cm
Provenance: Purchased from The Mayor Gallery, 14 Brook Street, London, 1950, for £280 by Kerrison Preston Esq.
Exhibited: ‘Works by Augustus John’, The Diploma Gallery, The Royal Academy of Arts, 1954, no. 514.
| Estimate: |
£10,000 - £15,000
|
|
Hammer price:
|
£9,500 |
Bidding ended. Lot has been sold.
A similar composition, ‘The Fairy Tale’, was sold at Christie’s, London in December 2012 (lot 263), achieving a hammer price of £32,000. This work featured the same three boys and woodland setting, but with the addition of a woman seated between the two younger children. It is believed this woman is Euphemia Lamb (née Nina Forrest), the wife of the artist Henry Lamb.
Both works were most likely painted in Provence, a region for which John felt a particular affection. As Michael Holroyd writes, ‘It was in Provence that he was to find another home - “I love that patch of ground,” he claimed - and it was to the Provençal landscape ... that he would look for his finest pictures’ (M. Holroyd, Augustus John, London, 1996, p. 312).
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