An original c.1900s oil painting, George Spencer Watson RA, Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.This majestic Edwardian oil painting shows an iconic watery vista on Venice's Grand Canal, looking across to the Santa Maria della Salute—the city's characteristic brickwork and rooftops shimmering in an atmospheric palette of soft russets, salmon pinks and chalky whites.The artist is George Spencer Watson ROI RP ARA RA (1869–1934), a fascinating figure with a vibrant personal life and legacy, whose style bridges late-romanticism and modernity. Watson won the silver medal for drawing and the Landseer scholarship at the RA Schools, and exhibited 132 works at the Royal Academy throughout his career. He was principally a portraitist, working at a time when portraiture became the most radical genre in British painting. His society portraits sit—in their brilliant, confident brushwork and modernity—with the innovative work of Whistler, Sargent and Lavery.Aside from commissioned portraits, Watson's oeuvre includes many personal subjects from his rich home life and travel, and these pictures more resemble the work of British Post-Impressionists, such as Spencer Gore and Duncan Grant. Watson moved in an interesting cultural circle, having married the dancer and mime artist Hilda Mary Gardiner and set up home at Dunshay Manor on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. Their daughter, Mary, was a pioneering sculptor who trained at the Royal Academy and in Paris under Ossip Zadkine; her monumental work, hewn out of Purbeck stone, has been compared to that of Jacob Epstein. Dunshay Manor was decorated in the Arts and Crafts style and became an artistic haven for the Spencer Watson family; George set up a studio in the dairy and Hilda and Mary set up a theatre in the barn. Hilda was a client and friend of the psychotherapist Carl Jung, who visited Dunshay to take tea.George Spencer Watson produced a number of Continental subjects, including a composition at Porto Fino in 1911, and Alpine views believed to be painted in the early 1920s when the Watsons travelled to Switzerland to attend Jung's clinic. A framing label on the verso of this present work (Christian Lamm, 36 Earls Court Road, Kensington) dates the painting to 1878–1908. The atmosphere of this sensuous Venice view evokes the tradition of the 'colore' of the local Venetian school, which emphasized the particular properties of light and atmosphere, and also an awareness of the iconic Venetian vedute of the previous century. But its composition, of striated horizontal marks, and the dominance of water in the picture plane, denote an explicit concern for pictorial construction—qualities for which in 1910 Roger Fry would coin the term ‘post-impressionism’, and which would forge the way for Modernism in British art.George Spencer Watson's works can be found in numerous public collections, including the Tate, Royal Academy, National Trust, English Heritage, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston and Wolverhampton Art Gallery.Painted in oil on canvas textured paper over board.Presented in its original Victorian Rococo Revival frame, with engraved brass plaque giving the provenance: from the Artists' Family.All artworks come with a Certificate of Authenticity and—if it is a collection artwork—its accompanying collection text or artist biography. Signed: No. Height: 20.5cm (8.1″) Width: 34cm (13.4″) Condition: Overall in good condition for its age. Very slight imperfections to the paint in places: faint crack to the paint surface at the lower right corner, tiny fleck paint loss to the left of the dome and in the green at the right-hand side. These are barely visible and do not detract from the overall quality of the painting. Frame is in good condition; minor hairline cracks to the plaster/compo in places, but no significant damage or losses. Verso of the board has abrasions and marks as shown. Please see photos for detail. Presented: In its original Victorian Rococo Revival frame (size: 30 x 43cm), with engraved brass plaque giving the provenance: from the Artists' Family.
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