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Lot Essay
WORKS ON SILK BY CHARLES CONDER
‘Conder won contemporary fame above all for his watercolours on silk. They represent a large proportion of his oeuvre and were first begun in the early 1890s when he had been living in France for some years. In spite of critical success with his plein air landscapes exhibited at the New Salon in Paris and the New English Art Club in London, he found it difficult to attract a market for his work.
'At the same time fashionable Paris, on the edge of the modern era and looking back on a tumultuous century, was indulging in a period of nostalgia for the lost world of the ancien regime, destroyed by the Revolution. Writers such as the de Goncourt brothers, Théophile Gautier and poet Paul Verlaine had, since the 1860s, been reviving interest in the artists of the eighteenth century, particularly Antoine Watteau and the Sainte-Aubin brothers. The elegant Rococo style of decoration was becoming fashionable again, and there was demand for decorative work for the new de luxe interiors. Critics such as Roger Marx took up the Rococo revival, portraying it as an expression of French national culture, its delicacy and refinements symptomatic of French genius, at a time when the nation was feeling under the threat from Bismarck’s Germany.
'The imagery in Conder’s watercolours on silk creates an imaginary world peopled by lovers, courtesans, poets and characters from the Italian comedy popular in nineteenth century Paris, the commedia dell’ arte. He created a world of exquisitely dressed figures in idyllic landscapes strolling or conversing in groupings reminiscent of the theatricalised arrangements of Watteau’s fétes galantes.’
A. Galbally, Charles Conder, ‘Paintings on silk’, Sydney, 2003
From the collection of one of Conder's closest friends and patrons, Conder met Dalhousie Young in 1896 (the year of the present work), and illustrated his song cycle In a Gondola in the same year. Young and his wife bought and commissioned work from Conder, including pictures, fans and painted textiles.
‘Conder won contemporary fame above all for his watercolours on silk. They represent a large proportion of his oeuvre and were first begun in the early 1890s when he had been living in France for some years. In spite of critical success with his plein air landscapes exhibited at the New Salon in Paris and the New English Art Club in London, he found it difficult to attract a market for his work.
'At the same time fashionable Paris, on the edge of the modern era and looking back on a tumultuous century, was indulging in a period of nostalgia for the lost world of the ancien regime, destroyed by the Revolution. Writers such as the de Goncourt brothers, Théophile Gautier and poet Paul Verlaine had, since the 1860s, been reviving interest in the artists of the eighteenth century, particularly Antoine Watteau and the Sainte-Aubin brothers. The elegant Rococo style of decoration was becoming fashionable again, and there was demand for decorative work for the new de luxe interiors. Critics such as Roger Marx took up the Rococo revival, portraying it as an expression of French national culture, its delicacy and refinements symptomatic of French genius, at a time when the nation was feeling under the threat from Bismarck’s Germany.
'The imagery in Conder’s watercolours on silk creates an imaginary world peopled by lovers, courtesans, poets and characters from the Italian comedy popular in nineteenth century Paris, the commedia dell’ arte. He created a world of exquisitely dressed figures in idyllic landscapes strolling or conversing in groupings reminiscent of the theatricalised arrangements of Watteau’s fétes galantes.’
A. Galbally, Charles Conder, ‘Paintings on silk’, Sydney, 2003
From the collection of one of Conder's closest friends and patrons, Conder met Dalhousie Young in 1896 (the year of the present work), and illustrated his song cycle In a Gondola in the same year. Young and his wife bought and commissioned work from Conder, including pictures, fans and painted textiles.