Important Australian and International Fine Art AUCTION • MELBOURNE • 21 APRIL 2021
MELBOURNE • AUCTION + VIEWING 105 commercial road, south yarra, victoria, 3141 telephone: 03 9865 6333 • facsimile: 03 9865 6344 info@deutscherandhackett.com
SYDNEY • VIEWING 16 goodhope street, paddington, new south wales, 2021 telephone: 02 9287 0600 • facsimile: 02 9287 0611 info@deutscherandhackett.com
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LOTS 1 – 80 WEDNESDAY 21 APRIL 2021 7:00pm 105 commercial road south yarra, vic telephone: 03 9865 6333 THURSDAY 8 – SUNDAY 11 APRIL 16 goodhope street paddington, nsw telephone: 02 9287 0600 11:00am – 6:00pm THURSDAY 15 – TUESDAY 20 APRIL 105 commercial road south yarra, vic telephone: 03 9865 6333 11:00am – 6:00pm email bids to: info@deutscherandhackett.com telephone: 03 9865 6333 fax: 03 9865 6344 telephone bid form – p. 151 absentee bid form – p. 152 www.deutscherandhackett.com/watch-live-auction
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ARTHUR STREETON
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(1867 – 1943) THE GRAND CANAL, 1908 oil on canvas 92.0 x 168.5 cm signed lower right: A STREETON artist’s label verso with title, artist’s name and 10 Hill Rd. / Abbey Road / London N.W. ESTIMATE: $1,500,000 – 2,000,000
PROVENANCE Victorian Artists Society Gallery, Melbourne Arthur Baillieu, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 1914 Amy Shackell, Melbourne (Arthur Baillieu’s sister) Sandra Clarke (ne Shackell), Devon Park, Western Victoria from December 1957 [note attached verso] Thence by descent Private collection, Victoria EXHIBITED Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, Paris, May 1910, cat. 1728 (stamped verso and label fragment attached verso) Mr Streeton’s Pictures, Victorian Artists Society Gallery, Melbourne, June 1914 Loan Exhibition of the Works of Arthur Streeton, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 November 1931 – 20 January 1932 (label fragment attached verso) 20th Century Australian Painting, Hamilton Gallery, Victoria, August 2016 A Western District Provenance – major works from private collections of the Western District of Victoria, united for the first time, Hamilton Gallery, Victoria, November 2018 Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 7 November 2020 – 14 February 2021
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LITERATURE West, W.K., ‘Streeton: Mr Arthur: An Artist from Australia’ in The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art, vol 47, London, 1909, pp.259 – 267 (illus.) Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Osboldstone & Co., Melbourne, 1935, no. 346 (Mr. Arthur Baillieu) Schmidt, S., ‘A Significant Streeton Rediscovery’, Art Monthly Australasia, Issue 326, 30 December 2019, n.p. Schmidt, S., ‘A New Streeton Attribution: The Grand Canal, 1908’, Art Monthly Australasia, Issue 323, April 2020, pp. 56–61 Tunnicliffe, W. (ed.), Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2020, pp. 217 – 218, 230 – 231 (illus.) 371 RELATED WORK The Grand Canal, Venice, 1908, oil on canvas, 91.0 x 152.5 cm, in Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Osboldstone & Co., Melbourne, 1935, no. 365 (Sir Robert Mond) Grand Canal, Venice, 1927, oil on canvas, 36.0 x 66.0 cm, in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
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ARTHUR STREETON (1867 – 1943) THE GRAND CANAL, 1908
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A BAILLIEU CENTURY: THE GRAND CANAL (1908) Dr. Sarah Schmidt
All Streeton’s powers are here concentrated… his mastery of composition and atmospheric truth, the distinction of his colour and touch – Lionel Lindsay This painting is assuredly among Arthur Streeton’s very best, a glorious work capturing all of the splendour and beauty of Venice, monumental and with great theatrical presence. Much has been written about the famous views of the Grand Canal, painted by artists from Canaletto, to Monet;1 this painting sits comfortably in the company of such masterpieces and their visual language of opalescent waterways, gondolas and landmarks of Venetian architecture. To look anew though, and to appreciate Streeton’s unique view of The Grand Canal, Arthur Streeton, 1901, photograph by W. Crooke, Edinburgh
is to observe the stepped terracotta roofing, arranged in this picture euphoniously like a sequence of musical notes: the interconnected roofs of Venetian palaces, and other buildings. This sea of terracotta is given undeniable beauty: a key element of the vista, perfectly harmonised with the shimmering blue of both water and sky. Streeton’s technical skill is shown in orchestrating this attractive palette, carefully dominated by two complementary colours, representing the Canale Grande and an optimistic sky counterpoised with palazzo rooftops. Streeton painted The Grand Canal from Palazzo Foscari, which present-day turisti d’arte will find ten minutes from Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, home of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The composition is elevated, as the scene was captured from the top of Palazzo Foscari, a fact which Streeton communicated to Baldwin Spencer in October 1908 (see p. 54). 2 The elevation offers the viewer absolute command over the dazzling spectacle of the Grand Canal, which is part of the fetch of this painting. Streeton notes artist Clara Mustalba, a resident of Venice, gained him permission to paint at the Palazzo. 3 When I published these findings in 2019, drawing together Venetian references from Streeton’s archives to tell the story of this painting, I could not be sure that it was this picture to which Streeton refers in the October 8 letter but my continuing research allows me to suggest it is indeed this
Arthur Streeton with easel, Venice, 1908 Courtesy: archival photographs of Oliver Streeton
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very picture, and also the first painted, of the two works discussed in this essay.4
Streeton painted most of his Venetian works in 1908: of 85 catalogue entries that year, 78 works are Venetian scenes.5 Newly married to Canadian violinist, Esther Leonora (Nora) Clench, Streeton holidayed in Venice from April to May 1908, visiting again in September to October of that year, and painting throughout each trip. Nora was a painter herself and at the turn of the century had stopped her music to travel to Paris and paint. When she resumed her violin, she started the all-female ‘Nora Clench Quartet’ which was known for ‘the most avant-garde music in London’.6 Soon after the newly-weds’ 1908 trips to Venice, Streeton held several exhibitions that featured the Venetian works: in Sydney, Melbourne, Paris, Dublin, Venice, and London, among others. The Alpine Club, London, staged a solo show in March 1909, and the Guildhall, Melbourne, presented Arthur Streeton’s Venice, in July 1909.7 The present work was not within that exhibition; it appears to have remained in Europe until at least May 1910, when it was shown at the ‘Salon de la Sociètè des Artistes Francais’, Paris. 8 Streeton’s letter to Spencer 9 details the picture’s size, corresponding exactly with the dimensions of the present work: ‘… I’ve painted on 66x36 from the top of Palazzo Foscari – commanding a fine view of the ‘Grand Canal.’10 This suggests that the painting was commenced
Arthur Streeton in Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1908 Courtesy: archival photographs of Oliver Streeton
during the artist’s second trip to Venice in September 1908, or the first week of October, and possibly completed in the studio in London.11 The catalogue number that the artist has given this work identifies it as the earlier of two epic pictures of this Grand Canal scene. The dimensions stated in the letter can be cross-referenced with the measurements provided through the 1914 exhibition purchase.12 Robert Mond Esquire of Sussex owned a Venetian Grand Canal painting by Streeton that shares similar grandeur to the present work.13 He and his father Ludwig were both patrons of Streeton’s work. From 1912, Ludwig hosted the artist and his wife as house guests on a number of occasions. A Mond home also became a soldiers’ hospital during the First World War, and Streeton stayed there under different circumstances.14 The current painting, the ‘Baillieu Streeton’, has a marginally broader waterway15 and slightly softer features than the Mond version, such as the angles, shadows and windows on some buildings. This gentler treatment emphasises the painting’s great achievement in Impressionist technique, and the Heidelberg School artists’ famous capture of the play of light using gestural brushstroke and colour. This work has a lightness, and almost ethereal quality that is similar to Venice, Bride of the Sea,16 also painted in 1908, but a fraction of the size.
Nora in Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1908 Courtesy: archival photographs of Oliver Streeton
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From a letter to Baldwin Spencer, 8 October 1908, with a sketch of San Marco, Venice Courtesy: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
Société des Artistes Français 1910, Catalogue Illustré du Salon Courtesy: University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
There are only two Venetian works of the scale of the present picture
The rediscovery of this work in time for the 2020 Streeton exhibition
in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue and of his vast body of work on the
at the AGNSW allowed Australian audiences to see the full brilliance of
Venetian theme (over eighty works), this painting is authoritatively the
Streeton’s Venetian vision in a work which eclipses other paintings of
largest. Among his extraordinary oeuvre of over 1000 paintings, only
the series in both scale and accomplishment.18
twenty-four are of a scale comparable to The Grand Canal. Until a public gallery exhibition in 2016, the painting had been out of In his final (smaller) Grand Canal painting (1927) Streeton retains
circulation for up to 84 years. This artwork and research were brought to
those key differences which distinguish the ‘Baillieu picture’ from the
the attention of AGNSW writers in 2019,19 but the work had escaped the
‘Mond picture.’17 The main change is the magnified building in the
attention of earlier Streeton publications and surveys, its whereabouts
left foreground that is introduced as a framing device; this suggests
had been largely unknown; in this sense it has been described as ‘the
that there is a progression in the latter two pictures that the artist has
missing Streeton.’ 20 With the passage of time this painting has slipped
chosen. The small Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) version
from the purview of museums and art historians, from 1932 until
(1927) is a spirited and lively little work despite the added building
this present century. In 1931–2 the picture was included in the Loan
it shares with the Mond, as it is painted with rapidity and freedom.
Exhibition of the Works of Arthur Streeton at the National Art Gallery of
Streeton’s return to this scene in 1927 reflects the artist’s attachment
New South Wales (forming a wonderful arc with its major public return
to this particular view. In contrast to the Mond painting, where the view
to exhibition at the AGNSW in 2020). This fact was discovered from
is hemmed in by the squarish building on the left, in the present work
a label on the painting’s verso. 21 In relation to the 1931-2 exhibition,
the eye glides into the waterway. The Art Gallery of South Australia has
Lionel Lindsay, as then Trustee, wrote in 1935:
a sketch of the Grand Canal that shows a successful asymmetry, in common with the present picture.
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The Nora Clench Quartet, London, 1904 Photographer: J. Russell & Sons, London
And that great canvas of the Grand Canal! Can I sufficiently acclaim
a diva who, besides being a great musician, was also an almost royal
it? All Streeton’s powers are here concentrated as in his “Centre of
personage. She was grand in the days that were truly grand.’ 29 Melba
Empire,” his mastery of composition and atmospheric truth, the
sung for royals across Europe:30 ‘no fewer than seven kings and queens
distinction of his colour and touch. 22
attended one gala performance at Covent Gardens in 1914.’ 31 Hailed by her contemporaries as ‘the world’s greatest singer,’ 32 Melba was an
The Grand Canal (1908) has remained in different branches of the
ardent fan of Streeton’s work, owning several paintings. 33 In 1915 she
Baillieu family, for well over a century, since Streeton sold it to Arthur
wrote to him: ‘Dear Arthur Streeton, … I have seen your lovely pictures
Sydney Baillieu via Mr Streeton’s Exhibition of Pictures in June 1914, 23
at Professor [Baldwin] Spencer’s, how I wish they were all mine.’ 34
just a month before the start of the first World War. 24 This picture passing by descent in the family has led to its uncontested attribution
When building her home in the Yarra Valley, Melba employed Percy
and provenance, as established in 2019: Arthur Streeton’s, The Grand
Grainger’s father, John, as architect and engineer. 35 She named the
Canal (1908), no. 346 in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue (1935). 25 Many
house Coombe Cottage after a property she had rented in London while
major Streeton works have traversed the secondary art market multiple
performing at Covent Garden; it is quite possible that Melba and the
times;26 instead this picture has been held within one family for well
Streetons connected at the home of Ludwig Mond in Combe Bank,
over a century.
Sevenoaks, Kent. 36
Returning to live in Australia in 1923, the Streetons were met on arrival
In 1936 Streeton produced a painting titled Melba‘s Country, more than
at the wharf by Dame Nellie Melba, who encouraged them to settle in
twenty years after he had painted at her property in 1913-14. This
Olinda. 27 In the following year she opened Streeton’s exhibition at The
represented a return to favoured subject matter at the conclusion of
Fine Art Society Gallery, Melbourne. Melba was once described as ‘…
his career, just like ‘The Grand Canal’ paintings of 1908 which were
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The Grand Canal, Venice Formerly in the collection of Robert Mond, Esq., Kent, England
reprised in 1927. This is Streeton returning to his most loved subjects.
in the Loan Exhibition of the Works of Arthur Streeton in 1931–32, and
A reviewer in 1914 wrote: ‘…the undulating country around Madame
through his will of 1943.45 The painting was situated in Baillieu’s South
Melba’s House…has provided him with excellent subjects for the
Yarra home in a stately room carrying Persian carpets, and portraits of
expression of his genius,’
and, ‘even when he… gives varieties of the
Napoleon’s conqueror, British Admiral, Lord Nelson.46 Baillieu is the
same scene, he has some technical effort or charming colour mystery
father of the major Australian art patron Sunday Reed; it is interesting
to reveal.’48 This observation is also true of Streeton’s Grand Canal
to know that this grand and significant Streeton painting once graced
scene.
the family home of this influential figure, who laid the foundations for
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It is difficult to imagine that Streeton went from painting his generous and opulent Venetian scenes, to depicting the war as the next major chapter of his oeuvre. Anne Gray, Gerard Vaughan and Emma Kindred have precisely and observantly documented that body of work. 39 It seems certain, judging from the image of the Mond work in the publication The Art of Arthur Streeton, 1919,40 that the Mond picture survived World War One, and also that residing in Europe,41 it survived the Second World War; indications are that the Mond version remained in the family until the 1970s.42
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far-reaching relevance, not least as an example of collecting taste in the early twentieth century, reflected here by one of the nation’s most prominent families. It featured strikingly in the recent exhibition, Streeton, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as a key work, and the most important of the Venetian paintings.
Venetian series and indeed, of his extensive body of European work.
He is established as the
painting’s original owner by his 1914 purchase, the painting’s inclusion
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The Grand Canal holds a central place in Australian art history, with
This remarkable painting represents the very pinnacle of Streeton’s
Arthur Sydney Baillieu, who also commissioned paintings by Streeton,43 died the same year as the artist, in 1943.
the Heide Museum of Modern Art.
Dr. Sarah Schmidt
Dr. Sarah Schmidt is an Australian public gallery director and curator. Schmidt, who is Director of Canberra Museum and Gallery and the Commonwealth’s Nolan Collection, previously managed cultural diplomacy at the Australian Embassy, Beijing, was Director of Hamilton Gallery, and Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
1. S ee among many Venetian paintings by the two artists: Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), A Regatta on the Grand Canal, 1740 (National Gallery, London) and The Grand Canal looking South from Ca’Foscari to the Carita, c.1726-27 (The Royal Trust Collection, UK); Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal, 1908 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). An excellent reference which profiles significant artists who have painted in Venice is E.V. Lucas, A Wanderer in Venice, 1914; the reference is of note because it is contemporaneous with Arthur Streeton’s time in Venice, being published around six years later. 2. Galbally, A., & Gray, A., (Eds), Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton 1890-1943, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p.112. I am greatly indebted to Galbally and Gray for this publication which makes Streeton’s letters so accessible. The painting’s stretcher size (to the extreme, including canvas overlapping the stretcher), measured by Deutscher and Hackett is 92 x 168.5 cm (36.2 x 66.3 in); this is commensurate with the 66 x 36 as Streeton describes in his letter. ‘The Grand Canal’ (1908) — Baillieu version — is also described as 66 x 36 inches in the newspaper, The Register, reporting the sale of the painting (see note 11). albally & Gray, op. cit, pp.114-15. See also Schmidt, S, ‘Arthur Streeton’s 3. G “The Grand Canal” 1908’, 2019 < https://academia.edu> re n.2 & 4; Francesco Foscari (1373–1457) was Doge of Venice, 1423—1457 (see E.V. Lucas, 1914, op. cit, p.95). Lucas discusses the beauty of the palace and its ‘golden borders to the windows’, p.135. 4. T his view departs from those who assert it is the second, but facts surrounding the painting lead, I think, to a logical conclusion of this present painting as prima. Author of ‘Arthur Streeton’s Venice’, pp.213-232 in Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2020, Roger Benjamin, says ‘… the second large Grand Canal was purchased by Arthur Sydney Baillieu in 1914…’ — see p 218. I believe this claim is incorrect. The claim, as it is put, can also imply this assertion is drawn from my own research. I have shown many features of Streeton’s Venetian work, as published in 2019, but never asserted this painting as being the second work. A firm view on the order of these paintings has not been established or given by myself, until this present paper for Deutscher and Hackett; I am stating advances in what is ongoing research. Benjamin describes the ‘Mond version’ as having sold for £250 to Ludwig and Robert, citing as his source, the letter to Frederick Delmer of 23 September 1909 which describes a recent sale. The letter states, ‘I showed in Paris this year won a 3rd class gold medal… and I’ve sold at good price 250 pounds a
“Grand Canal Venice”, recently.’ See discussion in Galbally, & Gray, A, op. cit, p.117; and Schmidt, S, op. cit, 2019. It is only slightly overreaching perhaps, to assume this is the Mond painting sale, given at Streeton’s solo exhibition at The Alpine Club, March 26-April 9, 1909, the highest sale among 46 works sold, was approximately £105 (100 Guineas). This sizeable Grand Canal painting is clearly in the vicinity of the stated price, at a time when Streeton was heavily invested in his Venetian series. With the Baillieu purchase not until 1914, there is a high likelihood that the Mond Grand Canal Venice painting is the sale to which Delmer refers in the letter; the price, title and scale all point towards this. We know from the Mond picture’s reproduction in The Studio, vol.47, London, September 15, 1909, that it was acquired by this date (around five years earlier than Baillieu acquired his work). Regardless of sale dates, both paintings were made in 1908. The sequence of the pictures is not ideally constructed from sale dates, but instead from the artist’s own documentation of sequence (in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit.). The Mond picture was exhibited 22 May, 1909, at the New English Art Club summer exhibition at The Galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists, London, May 22, 1909 (there were two New English exhibition seasons in 1909: May and November); the painting was sold sometime between May and September 1909. Details given by the artist of the sale of Venetian paintings ‘to rich friends’ by August 1908 (in a letter to Tom Roberts), could counter argument that the Baillieu work was painted on the second trip to Venice, however this would depend on grand assumptions around scale and price; Streeton’s Venetian output was prolific so this letter is no basis for presumption either. In Streeton’s letter to Roberts (7 August 1908) he says, ‘I’ve sold a few of the Venetians to some rich friends and we’ve been staying at their houses in the country’ — Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114. Note there are at least three letters surrounding relevant Venetian sales: this August 1908 letter to Roberts, a letter on 1 July 1909, where Streeton speaks of a garden party showing Venetian pictures, and the letter to Delmer of 23 September 1909 (£250 sale). Per The Arthur Streeton Catalogue (1935), there are only two large scale Grand Canal paintings such as would command this price, although, there is a 1908 Venetian oil in Streeton’s catalogue which is missing dimensions: #381 ‘Venetian Canal’, owner General H Grimwade; also, Streeton did continue to paint —though not so prolifically— beyond the publication date of his 1935 catalogue, for example ‘Melbas Country’ (1936).
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5. T he Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit; see also Schmidt, S., 2019, op. cit, for analysis of the number of Venetian works in the Streeton catalogue, in the context of purchasers. 6. S ee https://yso.org.uk/history/biographies/nora-clench-1867-1938 7. S treeton’s letter to Walter Withers (25 May 1909) says: ‘My pictures [of?] Venice are on their way to the Guildhall & I’m fortunate in being in ‘Venice International’ most exclusive RA [Royal Academy], New English, RBA & Both Salons.’ — Galbally & Gray, op. cit, 116; I note also, relevant 21st Century Australian exhibitions on Venice: in 2003, La Serenissima: The Fascination of Venice, National Trust S.H.Ervin Gallery, curator Lou Klepac; and in 2005, Peter Perry, Venezia Australis: Australian artists in Venice 1900-2000, Castlemaine Art Gallery. 8. I note, Robert Mond died in Paris in late 1938 and his widow, Lady MarieLouise Mond, lived in France from the time of Mond’s death. Robert Mond bequeathed his art collection as follows: Lady Marie-Louise (his second wife) (four-sixths of his art collection), his eldest daughter, Frieda Brackley (one-sixth), and the children of his youngest daughter Irene Dunn (onesixth). In the will of Lady Marie-Louise Mond, property already in France is divided among her French relatives, and property in England was divided amongst Robert Mond’s grandchildren in England. Lady Marie-Louise Mond was imprisoned by German Forces at the start of the German Occupation of France. The Germans requisitioned two castles owned by Lady Mond during World War Two. 9. Part of this assertion comes from it being the only Grand Canal picture at this scale that has two verified references regarding its true measurements — see notes 2 & 7. 10. G albally & Gray, op. cit, p.112.; Schmidt, S., 2019, op. cit. 11. T he 36 x 66 inch measurement is stated in the letter from Arthur Streeton to Baldwin Spencer, 8 October 1908, and again in 1914 when the present picture was purchased by Baillieu. See Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114, and ‘Concerning People’ The Register, Adelaide, 13 April 1914.
right however, and a close friend of Streeton. Ludwig’s collection passed, at his death, to his wife, Frida Mond (nee Lowenthal) until her death in 1923 [Constable, W.G., ‘The Mond Bequest to The National Gallery’, Apollo: A Journal of the Arts, vol. 7 (39), March 1928, p.98; see also Wardleworth, D., ‘The “Friendly” Battle for the Mond Bequest,’ The British Art Journal, vol. 4, no. 3, 2003, pp. 87-93. Parts of the Mond collections were gifted to the National Gallery, London (as its most significant gift to date), the British Museum, and to the universities of Toronto, Liverpool and Manchester (Bonhams Old Master Paintings, 30 April 2014, p.175). A search of these collections has not provided any record of Sir Robert Mond’s The Grand Canal (1908). Extensive review of international auction records, has not unearthed the Mond work either, but database records for the relevant period are not as complete as those today. Research was also conducted by the writer in 2019, looking for the painting in collections related to Mond bequests, and via the University Ca‘ Foscari Venezia located in Palazzo Foscari and the Bibliotheca Hertziana — Max Planck Institute for Art History. his ongoing research into the location of the Mond painting considers T how the Mond family engaged in philanthropic and collecting practices across several countries, including from a base in Rome, and employed German Professor of art history Jean Paul Richter as an adviser. No Streeton paintings are recorded in Richter’s 1910 catalogue, The Mond Collection: An Appreciation. This publication pertains to the collection of Ludwig Mond, rather than Robert Mond, and is devoted to major European masterpieces so is not likely a full catalogue of artworks owned, but rather, a showcase for collection highlights. The Will of Frieda Brackley (nee Mond) is extremely detailed with regard to artwork and does not include mention of The Grand Canal, and nor do the wills of the other family members mention the painting (see note 8); a large portion of Ludwig’s collection had already been bequeathed conditionally to the National Gallery, London, in 1909, to transfer to the Gallery upon the death of Frieda (42 paintings were given). See also Saumarez Smith, C., Ludwig Mond’s Bequest. A Gift to the Nation, National Gallery, London, 2006, and The Mond Bequest at King’s College London: A Celebration; Adam, T., Transnational Philanthropy: The Mond Family’s Support for Public Institutions in Western Europe from 1890 to 1938, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
12. A ccording to the 1935 catalogue, there was only ever one 66 x 36 inch Grand Canal painting made by Streeton.
15. I t recalls to the writer, the words of Lucas: ‘To me the Grand Canal is the river of Venice—its Thames, its Seine, its Arno’, says E.V. Lucas, op. cit, p.114.
13. Robert Mond is credited in most publications as owner, Ludwig Mond on other occasions (see note14). In the 1935 Streeton catalogue, the Mond and Baillieu entries are separated by eighteen paintings. It is tempting to suggest that one painting was produced on the April-May trip, 1908, and another in September-October, but it may be the latter trip alone, when a work was painted en plein air. It is an October 1908 letter in which Streeton mentions one such painting (this present painting per catalogue sequence), and artist Clara Mustalba gaining him access to the Palazzo before further work being completed on return to the studio. See Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114 & Schmidt, S, 2019, op. cit; Mary Eagle has observed that many of Streeton’s Venetian paintings carried the special conviction of plein air works (Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of Arthur Streeton in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, 1994, p.147).
16. C ollection, Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide.
14. The Mond family, beginning with Robert’s father Ludwig (1839-1909), were major patrons of Streeton, a relationship acknowledged by the naming of the artist’s son, Charles Ludwig Oliver Streeton (1911-77). Ludwig Mond died 11 December 1909, in the same year as the purchase of The Grand Canal. In 1913 Streeton received a Mond commission for 15 paintings; several of these paintings have reached Australia, including The Orchard Garden of the Sir Robert Mond Home at Combe Bank Estate; The Cedars, Combe Park (1913); Lake, Combe Bank (1913), Interior, Combe Bank, Sevenoaks (1913). The Mond Grand Canal, is variously documented as the property of Ludwig Mond (such as in The Craftsman 1909), or of Robert Mond (1867-1938) (such as in The Studio, 1909, or the register of works in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Melbourne, 1935); the picture may have passed to Robert Mond after Ludwig’s death. By 1909, Robert was already a collector in his own
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17. There are subtle differences between reproductions of this scene published in 1909 and 1919, which are possibly the same (Mond) painting: The Studio, London, 1909; The Craftsman, 1909; and The Art of Arthur Streeton, 1919. The ‘Mond Streeton’ has more prominent structures, and a close-up view of a building in the left foreground. That Streeton chooses to retain the building close-up, also helps suggest that the Baillieu picture was painted first, before Mond’s, the artist later adding the symmetrical framing device of the magnified building. Other subtle variations in the number and placement of gondolas — especially the proud sail on a vessel at the centre of the Baillieu picture — and shadows across the water, differentiate the pictures, but they are substantially the same scene. To my eye, the present work is more spacious and pleasing than the Mond version, being without the heavy foreground building, which the artist appears to have experimented with for symmetry. he work was included in exhibitions curated by the writer in 2016 and 18. T 2018, as then Director, Hamilton Gallery: 20th Century Australian Painting, August 2016; then, A Western District Provenance - major works from private collections of the Western District of Victoria, united for the first time, November 2018. 19. I refer to an AGNSW request in November 2019 for permission to forward my research (as provided to Wayne Tunnicliffe in October 2019) to Roger Benjamin, towards his essay for the Streeton exhibition publication.
20. K nown principally through the artist’s catalogue, being Streeton’s own (published) record of his artworks produced 1883 to 1934, The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit; In 2016, Streeton’s And the Sunlight Clasps the Earth, (1895) was rediscovered in a private collection in Tasmania after around 120 years out of circulation. In 2014 the artist’s Ariadne, (1895) emerged from a private collection in Sydney after 70 years when the work was sold. There was also the reappearance in 2016 of etching plates by Streeton, subsequently printed by Theo and Soula Mantalvanos at Queenscliff Gallery and Workshop: see Legge, K., ‘Into the light: The lost etchings of Arthur Streeton,’ The Australian, 26 November 2016. 21. S ee Schmidt, S., ‘The Grand Canal, 1908, by Arthur Streeton’, attribution paper, (updated) August 2019 for notes recorded from the original labels. 22. L indsay, L., ‘Streeton’s Loan Exhibition’, pp.19 -20, in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, op. cit, p.20; Lindsay served as AGNSW Trustee 1918-1929 and 1934-1949; the ‘Centre of Empire’ reference will refer to Streeton’s painting The Centre of the Empire, (1902); similar glowing reviews were made of the Mond version: ‘...it is technically full of ability and has an unusual breadth of atmospheric effect.’ — newspaper article, 26 May 1909, obtained from The General Press Cutting Association. 23. Held at Melbourne’s Victorian Artists Society’s Gallery. 24. Galbally & Gray, op. cit., p.133, painting title and catalogue no. 346 provided: Streeton writes to Nora, ‘The opening day was a success… The Baillieu brothers (William and Arthur) and their wives are buying well, even the children snapping up Water-colours’. 25. Schmidt, S., attribution paper, 2019, op. cit.
35. Melba describes further: ‘If you take the long white road from Melbourne out towards the great Australian Bush, leaving behind you the little wooden-built townships of Lilydale and Coldstream, you will eventually arrive at what seems to be the fringe of civilisation... At this turning of the roads I have built my Australian home, Coombe Cottage, almost within sight and sound of the same trees and vineyards in which I played as a child…’ Melba, Dame Nellie, ‘Early Days in Australia,’ in Melodies and Memories:1861-1931, 1980, p.9. 36. The Streetons were first houseguests of Mond in 1912, on 14 and 15 December; Melba rented Coombe House, Devey Close, Coombe, Kingston Upon Thames in 1906. 37. ‘ Mr Arthur Streeton’s Pictures’, Punch, Thursday 24 December, 1914, p.35; review re an exhibition at The Athenaeum, Melbourne, 10-17 December, 1914. 38. Ibid. 39. Gray, A.,The Art of War, National Gallery of Australia, 2017 40. Ure Smith, S., Stevens, B., Lloyd Jones, C., (Eds.), The Art of Arthur Streeton, Angus and Robertson, 1919 41. S ome of Mond’s collection was stored with that of the National Gallery, London, during wartime; one resource shows over ten Venetian ‘Grand Canal’ artworks, by artists from Paul Signac to Camille Corot, and a possible Canaletto, that were removed in wartime; the Mond painting is not among these. This is a specific body of work located in one French facility where Nazi agencies deposited the artwork that was seized — see Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume.
26. See for example Australian and New Zealand Art Sales Digest.
42. C ommunication between the author and Mond descendant, January and February, 2021.
27. M elba apparently ‘yoo-hooing at the top of her substantial voice… Nora would recall their arrival with horror. She thought Melba most vulgar.’ Victoria Button cited in ‘York Symphony Orchestra profile of Nora Clench’: https://yso.org.uk/ history/biographies/nora-clench-1867-1938
43. R. H. Croll (ed.), Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, pp. 90–1.
28. The Herald, Melbourne, 22 March 1924, p.11; it was at this exhibition that Mrs McKenzie of Trawalla paid 1000 guineas for Golden Summer, Eaglemont, 1888. 29. T he Sun, Sydney, Sunday 8 June, 1941, p.22; Melba, singing across Europe, in Venice, ‘gave an unannounced concert… word having gone around that she was going to sing, a few gondolas began to cluster round a lighted barge… Half an hour later there was a stir, and the prima donna, stepping into a gondola, crossed the Grand Canal… she sang across the moon-flooded waters of the Grand Canal.’ — ‘Melba Sings in Venice’, Argus, Sat 24 October, 1925, p.8. 30. Davidson, J., ‘Dame Nellie Melba’, Dictionary of Biography, volume 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986. 31. Ibid. 32. ‘Madame Melba: The World’s Greatest Singer’, Daily Telegraph, 8 June, 1915, p.2.
44. Baillieu bequeathed the painting to son Everard as option for purchase or representing his share. The picture transferred to Arthur Baillieu’s sister, Amy Adelaide Shackell, who together with her son-in-law William John Trevor Clarke, gave the picture to her daughter Sandra Elizabeth Baillieu-Shackell (Arthur Baillieu’s niece) who married Clarke. Sandra owned multiple Venetian Streetons, loaning three, though not the present work, to an Adelaide Festival of Arts Exhibition in 1968 (see note from Papers of Streeton Family, MS 114, National Gallery of Australia). The couple later gave this painting to their son and his wife. 45. E stablished using original sources including the will of Arthur Baillieu, family oral histories, Streeton’s letters and exhibition catalogues, newspaper reports of the day, and original manuscripts, plus Streeton’s published letters. 46. The residence also housed, by Streeton, a Venetian watercolour and two further oil paintings: one of Queenscliffe (1907) and the other a panel showing Sydney Harbour. Source - Will of Arthur Baillieu. A letter, 5 October 1907, to Tom Roberts describes: ‘I’m here having an excellent time free of charge, and everything I like, Schnapper fishing thrown in, and doing a commission of Queenscliff for Baillieu – 30 x 20…’ Croll, op. cit., p.91.
33. The Windsor Damsel, Fishing, 1903; Strood Hill, 1904 and Venice, n.d., are other works known to be owned by Melba. 34. S ee National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection, ‘Letters of Sir Arthur Streeton’, 1915-1943, MS 9828; Letter from Nellie Melba to Arthur Streeton, 1915, from Coombe Cottage and re-addressed to Streeton from 10 Hill Road, Abbey Road, London, to 3rd London General Hospital Wandsworth, London, S.W. (the artist had volunteered to serve at the hospital as part of the Royal Army Medical Corps).
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