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Artist: Nathaniel Hone RHA (1831-1917) Title: Landscape with Figures, Trees and River Medium: oil on canvas laid on board Size: 25½ x 37½cm (10 x 14.8in) Framed Size: 38.5 x 50.5cm (15.2 x 19.9in) Provenance: James Adams, Dublin; Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Painted with consummate skill, this landscape with trees and river is an understated but accomplished work by Nathaniel Hone the Younger. The composition is anchored by two trees, one a dark massed shadow, the other tall and slender. Both are set off-centre, following a practice employed by artists ... Read more Nathaniel Hone Lot 85 - 'Landscape with Figures, Trees and River' Estimate: €3,000 - €5,000 Painted with consummate skill, this landscape with trees and river is an understated but accomplished work by Nathaniel Hone the Younger. The composition is anchored by two trees, one a dark massed shadow, the other tall and slender. Both are set off-centre, following a practice employed by artists in late nineteenth-century France, where careful ratios underpin seemingly loose and painterly Impressionist views. In the foreground, laid over an ochre ground, vigorous brush marks indicate a green field sloping down to the riverbank. An long triangle defines the edges of the river, its waters reflecting a blue cloudy sky. Nuanced in warm hues of brown, the trees on the far bank have a touch of purple. The visible brush marks in the foreground give way to more a scumbled effect in the middle distance, suggesting a sense of depth. Hone was a master at adding the slightest amount of grey to his oil colours, to achieve the most delicate tones. Silhouetted against the light band of water, the figure of a standing woman, and another seated, provide a focal point for the viewer to enter the elegiac mood of a landscape that lies halfway between Impressionism and the Romanticism of the Barbizon School. Born in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, Nathaniel Hone was a descendant of the brother of the eighteenth-century painter Nathaniel Hone After working for a period for the Midland Great Western railway company, of which his father was a director, Hone decided in 1853 to take up art. He studied for two years in Paris, under the history painters Adolphe Yvon and Thomas Couture before moving to Barbizon where he began to paint landscapes. Living at Fontainbleau, he was an active member of the Barbizon group of artists which included (at various times) Rousseau, Manet and Harpignies, with whom he was particularly friendly. In the late 1960's, Hone exhibited both at the Royal Academy and the Salons in Paris. In 1875 he returned to Ireland to live at his family's estate at Malahide, where, apart from annual trips to the West of Ireland, he remained for the rest of his life. He was elected a member of the RHA in 1880, and became professor of painting at the Academy in 1894. Peter Murray, March 2021