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Lot Essay
After their wedding, Le Mayeur and Pollok built a cottage on Sanur beach which was described by the artist, "I' ve had a cottage built on the seashore, far away from other people, especially Europeans. As it is in the middle of a paddy it can only be approached by way of the beach...our little house makes up a worthy frame around her (Pollok's) beauty." (Drs. Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing, &IAdrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprhs: Painter-Traveller, Wijk en Aalburg, 1995, p. 109).
Although the seclusion of the house was deliberately planned by the artist, he nevertheless remained very hospitable to his visitors and as Le Mayeur's fame soared, many celebrities visited the little cottage by the beach of Sanur. Amongst them was the novelist Nevil Shute who related the pleasant experience in his work Round the bend: "We went once or twice to a place on the other side of the strip called Sanur, where a Belgian artist was married to a very fine Balinese woman. I think that was the most wonderful house I have ever been in, the walls covered with paintings of the Balinese and their way of life, and full of Balinese young men and women so that it was difficult to say in memory which of the scenes remembered from the house were real ones and which were painted." "Ibid, p. 169).
The interior of the cottage was depicted in the present painting, revealing a corner almost too familiar with those who are acquainted with the artist's works. The exuberant foliage of the tropical garden that is surrounding the house is only hinted with the revealing window that permits the entry of the sunlight. The decorations of the interior, particularly the paintings on the wall, the flowers in the vase and the Balinese furniture are the artist's daily surrounding as well as constant stimulant for the artist.
The portrayal of an interior set against a luminous sun-bathed courtyard of tropical vegetation offered the best setting for an impressionist palette as the contrast of light and shadow allowed great manoeuvrability of colours. Albeit an often repeated composition, the artist's ability to create so many different versions of the same subject testifies to his ingenuity and the ever-present elements of freshness and spontaneity gives each and every one of them a character of its own.
Although the seclusion of the house was deliberately planned by the artist, he nevertheless remained very hospitable to his visitors and as Le Mayeur's fame soared, many celebrities visited the little cottage by the beach of Sanur. Amongst them was the novelist Nevil Shute who related the pleasant experience in his work Round the bend: "We went once or twice to a place on the other side of the strip called Sanur, where a Belgian artist was married to a very fine Balinese woman. I think that was the most wonderful house I have ever been in, the walls covered with paintings of the Balinese and their way of life, and full of Balinese young men and women so that it was difficult to say in memory which of the scenes remembered from the house were real ones and which were painted." "Ibid, p. 169).
The interior of the cottage was depicted in the present painting, revealing a corner almost too familiar with those who are acquainted with the artist's works. The exuberant foliage of the tropical garden that is surrounding the house is only hinted with the revealing window that permits the entry of the sunlight. The decorations of the interior, particularly the paintings on the wall, the flowers in the vase and the Balinese furniture are the artist's daily surrounding as well as constant stimulant for the artist.
The portrayal of an interior set against a luminous sun-bathed courtyard of tropical vegetation offered the best setting for an impressionist palette as the contrast of light and shadow allowed great manoeuvrability of colours. Albeit an often repeated composition, the artist's ability to create so many different versions of the same subject testifies to his ingenuity and the ever-present elements of freshness and spontaneity gives each and every one of them a character of its own.