Silver Birches

Details

John MacWhirter, R.A., H.R.S.A. (1839-1911)
Silver Birches
signed 'MacW' (lower right)
oil on canvas, laid down on panel
31 7/8 x 6¾ in. (80.6 x 171.cm.)

Provenance

Painted for Alma-Tadema's house, 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood; sold Hampton & Sons, London, 11 June 1913, lot 583
C. P. Mason; Sotheby's Belgravia, 5 November 1974, lot 72.
with Roy Miles Fine Paintings, Ltd, London.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, New York, 12 October 1994, lot 350D, when acquired by the present owner.

Literature

R. de Cordova, 'The Panels in Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Hall,' Strand Magazine, vol. XXIV, no. 144, December 1902, p. 623, illustrated.
P.C. Standing, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA, London, 1906, p. 43.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, exh. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1996-7, illus. p. 54.

Exhibited

32 Victorian Paintings from The Forbes Magazine Collection at The Fine Art Society, 1981.

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

'Mr MacWhirter's admirers,' wroter de Cordova, 'will delight in one of the silver birches of which - even before the year London went wild over his famous "Three Graces" - he had made so great a study.' The reference is to a picture that the artist had exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878, and which had been largely responsible for securing his election as ARA that year.

In Alma-Tadema's hall, the panel was placed to the left of James Archer's Centaurs, which was flanked by Colin Hunter's Seascape (lot 276) on the other side.

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