Beschreibung:

Artist: Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859-1903) Title: An Interior of a Coach House Signature: signed lower left Medium: oil on board Size: 19 x 28cm (7 x 11in) Provenance: The Pyms Gallery, London (label verso) Private Collection Literature: For many painters and art enthusiasts, Osborne included, this was a defining moment.³ Since the mid-century, Spanish art and culture had been a major influence in French, British and North American painting. Second generation Realist painters like Edouar More info: Click to read more about this lot For many painters and art enthusiasts, Osborne included, this was a defining moment.³ Since the mid-century, Spanish art and culture had been a major influence in French, British and North American painting. Second generation Realist painters like Edouard Manet had been responsible for initiating an hispagnoliste craze that sent painters flocking to the Prado. Irish compatriots like John Lavery had actually copied Velazquez' portraits in its galleries three years before Osborne and Armstrong got there.4 In Madrid, Osborne filled his sketchbook with notes of figures in cafés, streets and on one occasion, watching a game of pelota.5 A watercolour of An Old Fountain, Madrid is one of the few more substantial works to survive from the brief sojourn in the capital.6 The Spanish way of life with its rich Moorish and Christian heritage, which Osborne experienced as they travelled on to Brincola, Algodor and Toledo, was equally appealing. It is probable that the Interior of a Coach House was painted on this leg of the journey. Like his oil sketches in Galway, the work demonstrates Osborne's mastery as a spontaneous composer. Although the foreground is cast in warm shadows, two wagons and a peasant girl can be seen on the right. Shapes suggesting other figures are heading for the dark interior of the inn. To left and right of the composition, bright daylight illuminates the pantiles and white-washed walls of the structure. A glimpse of brilliant blue sky and flashes of sunlight, throw the foreground into relief. Although we may assume that Osborne's sketch records the scene before his eyes, there are important resonances with the little pochade studies by his contemporaries. Note-taking of this kind was favoured by painters in the 1880s. Whistler, in particular spoke of such works as 'little games' in which a window, doorway or strip of sky might form part of an abstract distillation of the scene. His aesthetic principles were much admired by artists such as Lavery, Walter Sickert, Mortimer Menpes and Philip Wilson Steer as well as Osborne himself. Coincidentally in 1895, the American master produced a suite of these studies at Lyme Regis, one of which, The Little Forge (Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow) is worked out in warm tones which are similar to those used in the present work. In later years, at Malahide, Osborne remained an avid sketcher, frequently challenging himself to produce successful compositions on the motif, in a single sitting. Like Lavery, he enjoyed risk-taking. Spontaneity, matched with a trained eye, and consummate skill meant that he was often successful and never more so than in the yard of a coach house in Old Castile. Kenneth McConkey, April 2014 3 On the outward or return, Osborne visited the New Gallery Spanish Art exhibition in London His catalogue for this show, annotated with a drawing after one of the Velazquez portraits, is contained in the National Library of Ireland. 4 For further reference see Kenneth McConkey, 'The Theology of Painting: The Cult of Velazquez in British Art at the turn of the twentieth century', Visual Culture in Britain, vol 6 no 2, 2005, pp. 189-205. 5 Sheehy,1974, nos 452-466 Nine of these drawings were acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland from Appleby Brothers, London in 1966 6 Sold Adam's. 4 October 2006, lot 56.