The tramp, St. Peter's Square

Details

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)
The tramp, St. Peter's Square
signed and dated 'L.S. Lowry 71' (lower right)
pencil and felt-tip pen
16 x 11½ in. (40.7 x 29.3 cm.)

Provenance

A gift from the artist to the present owner's daughter, Johanna Charlotte Ives in 1974.

Literature

L. Ives, Some Memories of Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A., Manchester Medicine, 1989, IV, no. 2, pp. 11-14 (illustrated).

Exhibited

Mottram-in-Longdendale, The Old Courthouse, L.S. Lowry Mottram Memorial Exhibition, June 1977, no. 7 (illustrated).
Stalybridge, Astley Cheetham Art Gallery, L.S. Lowry, November-December 1983, no. 40 (illustrated).
Salford, Art Gallery, L.S. Lowry Centenary Exhibition, October-November 1987, no. 300 (illustrated).
Middlesborough, Arts Council, South Bank Board, Cleveland Art Gallery, The Art of L.S. Lowry, December 1987-January 1988, no. 76 (illustrated); this exhibition travelled to Coventry, Herbert Art Gallery, March-April 1988; Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, April-May 1988; London, Barbican Art Gallery, August-October 1988.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Lawrence Ives's daughter, Johanna Charlotte, took Lowry a gift of a portrait by an old lady they had befriended in Chablis. Liking the picture, Lowry insisted on an exchange and showed her this drawing of A Tramp, St. Peter's Square and another of a bus queue. After some thought Johanna chose the present work in which the tramp, according to Lowry, is looking for cigarette ends.

Some years later a Manchester dealer offered Lawrence Ives a good forgery of this work. He was unimpressed when the owner of the original pointed out that it was, at the moment of speaking, in the 1987 centenary exhibition at Salford.

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