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(A Moorish doorway)
1883
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
- Gallery location
- Gallery 20
Level 3, NGV Australia
About this work
During the summer of 1883, when the Royal Academy schools were in recess, Tom Roberts set off for Spain with some Australian friends, including artist John Russell. The party moved quickly across the country, arriving in Granada early in September. It was here that Roberts met the French artists Laureà Barreau and Ramon Carbo Casas, who encouraged Roberts to pursue direct oil painting, in front of the subject. A Moorish doorway is crisply realistic, earthy in palette and flooded with sunlight. Still standing, the building has been identified as the Partal Chapel at the Alhambra in Granada, and it is believed that it was constructed during the reign of Yusuf I.
Artwork Details
inscribed in red paint l.r.: Granada Oct / 83
inscribed in brown paint on reverse u.c.: Tom Roberts
The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Level 3, NGV Australia
Frame
Tom Roberts, A Moorish doorway, 1883, acquired in 2004, had been framed with a late twentieth century version of a seventeenth century Spanish or Italian style frame. Providing a new frame for the painting became a priority ahead of the exhibition Australian Impressionism in 2007.
A prototype for the frame was found on Una Muchacha, a work painted by Roberts on the same 1883 expedition to Grenada.
This frame carried the label of Blair and Co. of 28 Swanston Street (dating between 1885-6) and appeared to be the original presentation of the painting.
A reproduction of the frame was made to fit A Moorish doorway with the toning of the frame carried out using the Una Muchacha frame as a guide.
The painting was fitted in the frame in 2007.
Frame Details
- Framemaker
- Reproduction - commissioned by the NGV
- Date
- 2007
- Materials
-
Wood, composition and gold leaf