(Loanhead of Guthrie, Angus, 1855–1904 Whitley, Surrey)
‘Old Enemies’, signed and dated Arthur Melville.1880, oil on canvas, 165 x 112 cm, framed, (GG)

Catalogued in:
Agnes Ethel Mackay, Arthur Melville Scottish Impressionist, Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, p.138, no.207

Exhibited:
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1881, no.712;
London, Royal Academy, 1882, no.199;
Aberdeen, 1893; Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 1905, no. 106;
London, R.I., 1906, no.18;
Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 1907, no.123.

Provenance:
John Tullis, Glasgow, a leather goods manufacturer and one of Meville’s principal patrons.

The present lot is an important rediscovery and a superb example of Melville’s early work. It was indeed considered one of Meville’s most significant early works and was well reviewed at the time.

Like many young British of his generation, Melville was deeply influenced by the rural naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884). Painters emulating his style were to be found in Brittany, at Newlyn in Cornwall and Cockburnspath in Scotland. He studied in Paris in 1878 at the Académie Julian. In the late 1870s he was drawn to the village of Grez-sur-Loing, close to the forest of Fontainebleau, south of Paris, where a community of artists was being established. Artists including James Guthrie (1859-1930), John Lavery (1856-1941), William Stott of Oldham (1857-1909) and Alexander Mann (1853-1908) produced works en plein air. They painted rustic scenes full of light and atmosphere. Melville never lived in Glasgow, but visited the ‘boys’ from Edinburgh and joined them on their summer painting excursions to Cockburnspath.

Bastien-Lepage believed that a painter should document the daily life of the countryside and the charm of its peasant folk. Melville also followed this principle in the present lot which depicts a mother in the foreground protecting her children from an approaching group of turkeys. The young boy sits behind the market stall while the little girl is protected by her mother. In the background a couple is watching the scene.

The rich dark and light brown tonalities are prevalent here, heightened with a few colours as is characteristic of Melville’s early works. At Grez-sur-Loing, where the present lot was probably painted, Melville focuses entirely on the rural workers. He captured them at their everyday tasks, their daily routine. The present painting combines all these elements. The large scale of the work required a broader manner of painting. It was a challenge for a young artist like Meville to paint a large scale, figural theme en plein air. Artists at the start of their careers, like Meville, were usually advised not to attempt such ambitious projects, but rather smaller scale works.