Sea idyll
(c. 1891)
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 100.5 × 161.5 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Paris, France
- Inscription
- inscribed in blue paint l.r.: Rupert C. W. Bunny
- Accession Number
- p.399.1-1
- Department
- Australian Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Alfred Felton, 1892 - Gallery location
- Not on display
Frame
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-
This highly refined, essentially classical revival, frame uses an unusually deep scotia and linear relief (reeding) along the leading edge. The frame is almost certainly a copy of the frame on J. W. Waterhouse’s Ulysses and the sirens, 1891 (p.396.3-1), which entered the collection in 1891, the year before the Bunny. The Whitehead frame has reduced the depth of the scotia and uses a shallower angle to the reeded leading edge. It is a somewhat simplified version of the Waterhouse frame.2 The frame was removed from Sea idyll and sold in a job lot in 1941. It was recovered from the monastery of The Benedictine Community of New Norcia Inc in Western Australia in 1998 and refitted to the painting.
Notes
1 At this date Isaac Whitehead’s son ran the business. (See Anna Maria Espinoza, ‘A Framemaker of Colonial Melbourne: Isaac Whitehead c. 1819–1881’, in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999. pp. 33–48.)
2 The maker of the Waterhouse frame has not been identified.
- Framemaker
- Isaac Whitehead (Jnr.)
87 Collins Street East, (over written as 178) Melbourne - Date
- 1889–931
- Materials
-
The frame uses water gilded gold leaf on a softwood chassis. The major profile has been cut from a solid section laminated from two pieces of wood. A simple timber moulding has been added at the working edge. A shallow scotia section, cut from a single piece of wood, provides the first step toward the slip.
- Condition
-
The frame is in good original condition with most of the original surface intact. The deteriorated matte glue size has attracted dirt. The slip has been reconstructed from photographic evidence.
- Dimensions
- 144.5 x 205.2 x 15.0 cm; sight 105.8 x 166.7 cm
Colourmen
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- Colourman
- PAUL FOINET
- Location of stamp
- Upper right quadrant, reverse of canvas
- Transcript
- 54 rue N.D. des Champs Paris/PAUL FOINET/(VAN EYCK)/TOILES & COULEURS FINES
- Medium
- Ink stencil
- More Information
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- National Portrait Gallery
- Guide Labreuche (FR)