FREDERICK McCUBBIN 1855 – 1917 (View of the towards Richmond from below McCubbin’s House, Kensington Road) 1910 (also known as The Pool, Heidelberg) oil on canvas 49.5 x 75 cm signed lower right: F McCubbin 1910

Provenance: The vintage years that followed Frederick invites the viewer to be drawn into a spectacle Leonard Joel, , 26 July 1989, lot 76, McCubbin’s visit to in 1907 witnessed of wondrous delight. The painting has that as The Pool, Heidelberg some of the finest paintings of his entire effervescence one usually associates with J. M. private collection, Melbourne oeuvre. Related major canvases featuring the W. Turner’s pictures of Venice and the sparkle Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, 1996 Yarra River from the heights of South Yarra of light on water. As the master of the intimate private collection, included Moonrise 1909 in the collection of the in the Australian landscape, McCubbin carried of , Melbourne, and this sparkle into the foreground foliage, tree Exhibited: Golden Sunlight 1912, gifted to the Castlemaine trunks and bush through the deft application A Happy Life: Frederick McCubbin’s Small Paintings Art Gallery and Historical Museum by Dame of paint with brilliant strokes of the brush and & Oil Sketches, cat. no. 30, as The Pool, Heidelberg, Nellie Melba in 1923. Crowded between are palette knife. The painting becomes a visual National Gallery of Victoria, touring, 1991-1992, City numerous masterpieces –Hauling Timber, translation of joy celebrating the promised land, of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery; City of Hamilton Art Macedon Heights 1911, private collection, and the loved place where he lived and in all its Gallery; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Afterglow (Summer Evening) 1912 and Flood dreamlike beauty. It flows as a theme throughout Launceston; Benalla Art Gallery; Mornington Waters 1913, both from the National Gallery of his art, followed that same year in Oliver’s Hill, Peninsula Arts Centre, Mornington; La Trobe Valley , Canberra, to mention but a few. Each Frankston (Summer Idyll) 1910 in the Kerry Arts Centre, Morwell until 31 October 1992 in its different way reveals McCubbin’s love of Stokes Collection. The McCubbin family had 19th & 20th Century Australian Painting Sculpture the panoramic view touched by the intimate, moved to ‘Carlsberg’ in Kensington Road, in and Decorative Arts, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, contrasting the distant with the close up view. Melbourne’s South Yarra in 1907. The view from Melbourne, 1 May-7 June 1996, cat. no. 10, as (View To this he adds lyrical golden touches to the McCubbin’s home provided the inspiration for of the Yarra River towards Richmond from below poetic moments of the day. these paintings looking across the River Yarra McCubbin’s House, Kensington Road), 1910 to the distant city, in this case the suburb of 40 Australian Paintings for Sale, Savill Galleries, This is highlighted in (View of the Yarra River Richmond. In December 1907 he wrote to his Sydney, March 2016, cat. no. 17, as The Pool, towards Richmond from below McCubbin’s old friend , ‘This is the loveliest Heidelberg House, Kensington Road) 1910, where McCubbin place I have ever lived. A charming old colonial achieved a singular harmony between the house… perched right over the Yarra with three Literature: enchanting distant view and captivating acres of garden and trees … The winding stream, Clark, J., A Happy Life: Frederick McCubbin’s intimacy of the foreground by engaging the gums, osiers and wattle; interspersed. The night Small Paintings & Oil Sketches, National Gallery of Corotesque touch of the framing device of effects; sunrise, moonrise, we can Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 6, 20 & illus. p. 22 trees. Viewed from a high vantage point, the see every way’. 1 river bend and city beyond is enveloped in an atmosphere that excites the imagination and David Thomas

CLARA SOUTHERN 1861 – 1940 (The Open Gate) oil on canvas 30.5 x 25.5 cm signed lower right: C Southern

Clara Southern was an active member of the , painting in Heidelberg and Eaglemont and is particularly known for paintings of the area local to her home in Warrandyte where the influence of her teacher is often in evidence, as well as the influence of Frederick McCubbin, one of her teachers at the National Gallery School (1883 – 1887). She was an advocate for women’s equality in the arts profession, being the first woman member in various associations including the Buonarotti Society in 1886 and the Australian Artists’ Association and was elected to the Council of the Victorian Artists’ Society. Perhaps her most well known painting is An Old Bee Farm (c.1900, 69.1 x 112.4 cm) in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

38 | Lauraine Diggins Fine Art | | Lauraine Diggins Fine Art | 39 | Lauraine Diggins Fine Art | 40 FREDERICK McCUBBIN 1855 – 1917 Old, broken wooden fences are a familiar The Artist’s Garden, once in the Bleasel (Old Garden Fence, South Yarra) c.1916 motif in Frederick McCubbin’s art. A Winter collection, is similar in size and subject to oil on canvas on composition board Evening 1897, purchased by the National Gallery (Old Garden Fence, South Yarra) c.1916.1 Both 49.5 x 59.5 cm of Victoria in 1900, is an early example, of a are set in the sprawling grounds of ‘Carlsberg’, signed lower right: F. McCubbin quiet, fenced corner of McCubbin’s semi-rural extending to the Yarra River below. Trees, fence property at Brighton. When the McCubbin line, view through to the urban development Provenance: family moved to ‘Carlsberg’, South Yarra in beyond, and a brilliance of technique are John A Hogan, 1907, fences frequented many a landscape, strikingly similar. In our painting the Melbourne 1957 usually with an added motif – of busy chooks closeness of the scene draws the viewer into Mrs F. W. (Elsie) Dennett in Winter Sunlight 1908, (Art Gallery of South the masterly display of paint. All is enveloped by descent to Mrs Suzanne Cecil Australia) and the larger version, Autumn in an atmosphere that is nigh palpable in its (née Dennett) Morning, South Yarra 1916 (National Gallery of celebration of the intimate beauty of nature. In The Estate of Suzanne Cecil, Mossgreen, Victoria). Along with fences, McCubbin often this and many other late works, McCubbin Melbourne, 15 May 2016, lot 4, reworked other motifs, as in the man with the achieves a wonderful serenity through the as Landscape, South Yarra wheelbarrow seen in The Gardener c.1910 (Art felicitous harmony of ideas and technique. It corporate collection Gallery of ) and recalls what J. M. W. Turner, who McCubbin 1914 (The Melbourne Club). And in Old Garden much admired, achieved in his late works. In 1910 (Art Gallery of Western Australia) and McCubbin, the transcendental blends with the Winter’s Morning 1914 (National Gallery of ineffable in a painting of museum quality that Victoria), the McCubbin children in front of may grace the best of private collections. paling fences provide colourful foreground features. David Thomas

EMANUEL PHILLIPS FOX 1865 – 1915 Literature: the still waters. It brings to mind another turn After finishing at Melbourne’s National Gallery the National Gallery of Victoria for the painting, Spring, Heidelberg c.1899 Zubans, Ruth, E. Phillips Fox: His Life and Art, of the century painting by Fox, the masterly School in 1886, Fox studied in Paris at the The Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, oil on canvas laid down on board The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, Moonrise, Heidelberg 1900 in the collection of Académie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Fox held a solo exhibition at Melbourne’s Old 43 x 69.5 cm Melbourne, 1995, pp. 81, 219, cat. no. 115 the National Gallery of Victoria. Alike in scene The summers gave him the opportunity to paint Court Studio. Many landscapes were included, signed lower left: E Phillips Fox Topliss, Helen, The Artists’ Camps: ‘Plein Air’ and mood, their resemblances continue in the en plein air in Brittany, at the Pas-de-Calais, the art critic for The Age praising one for ‘the Painting in Melbourne 1885 – 1898, Hedley evocation of the tranquility of parting day or and St Ives in Cornwall before his return to vigor and dexterity of the execution’. Of others, Exhibited: Australia Publications, Melbourne, 1992, the rising of the moon through veiled light. The Melbourne in 1892. The following year he he found ‘Some of the smaller landscape The Artists’ Camps: ‘Plein Air’ Painting in p. 113, illus plate 139, 195 illusion of moisture is so dense in both paintings and Tudor St George Tucker established the studies particularly charming’, and admiring Melbourne 1885 – 1898, Gallery, that it is almost palpable. It engenders a sense Melbourne Art School based on French ‘a beautiful and original scheme of color’ in 7 June – 11 July, 1984. cat. 85 In Phillips Fox’s Spring, Heidelberg 1900-01 of the fruitfulness of nature, of green fields and teaching methods and painting out of another and ‘the glitter and freshness of nature’ noonday might and the sunny palette of the the springtime fullness of the Yarra River, seen doors, especially at their summer schools at in a third.2 Like concerti in paint, each of these Impressionists give way to the cooler, muted tones of again in The Pool 1899 in the collection of the Charterisville, Heidelberg. Spring, Heidelberg, Heidelberg landscapes delights in the seemingly the French Barbizon School, of naturalism touched Box Hill City Council. Of Spring, Heidelberg with all its appealing French overtones, was endless varieties of green and subtle harmonies with romanticism. The textural richness of the and its related landscapes, Ruth Zubans, in her painted there. found in nature, set peacefully beside the gently foreground, applied with the broad brush of the definitive work on Fox, wrote of ‘glistening, flowing Yarra. Impressionists, nevertheless, captivates the eye, as do moisture-laden scenes that impart an enchanted In October of 1900, before leaving for the emerald greens and vivacious lights reflected in view of the land’.1 to undertake the terms of the commission from David Thomas

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