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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram t.l.: ‘FB’
Oil on canvas, 200.7×200.7cm (79×79in)
Reference: Galloway 81
Provenance: Sir James Roberts, and by descent; Cyril Leeper; private collection
Exh: Berlin Academy, Berlin, 1912 (No 2773); Twentieth Spring Exhibition, Bradford, 1913 (No 157);  Venice Biennale, 1914 (No 1334) ; Exhibition of Paintings Drawings and Etchings by Frank Brangwyn, 184
Queen’s Gate, London, 1924 (No 55); Frank Brangwyn, Leeds, Bruges, Swansea, 2006
Lit: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1915, p95, 234
Ill: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London, 1915, facing p88;
NM Lazareva, Frenk Brengvin, Izobrazit, 1978, plate 28

The painting was awarded a gold medal at the Berlin Academy in 1912, and is one of Brangwyn’s seminal works.Brangwyn obviously had problems perfecting the sparkling brass pots and pans,writing to his friend RHKitson that he had ‘been trying to paint the brass pots and I feel wretched’, (37) but his efforts were not wasted,Shaw Sparrow noting that ‘their handling could not well be bettered’. (38)
 
The painting was purchased by Sir James Roberts (1848–1935). Born into
a poor farming family in Haworth,Yorkshire,Roberts started work at Saltaire Mill at the age of twelve and eventually succeeded Sir Titus Salt as owner of the mill. He established the chair of Russian at Leeds University in 1916, and in 1928 purchased and bequeathed to the nation the home of the Brontë family, Haworth parsonage. He probably purchased this particular work because his wife, Elizabeth Foster, had been brought up in Brass Castle, New Jersey.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas, 120.1 × 157.5cm (47¼ × 62in)
Reference: Galloway 673
Provenance: Carpenter Collection, Iowa, USA; Des Moines Art Center; Salender-O’Reilly
Galleries; Liss Fine Art; private collection
Exh: Robert Vose, Boston, USA, 1925; Exhibition of Paintings Drawings & Etchings by Frank Brangwyn, 184 Queen’s Gate, London, 1924 (No 50)
Ill: La Flamma, Rome, June 1924
 
The oil is based on the Old Testament story where Susanna was surprised by two elders when bathing.She repelled their advances and they retaliated by denouncing her for adultery. Daniel, however, exposed their deceit and they were subsequently stoned to death. The subject was popular amongst 17th-century painters, in particular Rubens and Jordaens, whose work Brangwyn admired.
 
In 1907 Brangwyn painted a larger version measuring 149 × 162cm (587 × 63¾in) which is in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. In this work the position of the figures is reversed.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas, 274.3×182.9cm (108×72in)
Provenance: E Kenneth Center; William de Belleroche (No 83); Gordon Anderson

Enquire about this picturePrice on request

Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas, 274.3×182.9cm (108×72in)
Provenance: E Kenneth Center; 28William de Belleroche (No 84); Gordon Anderson


 

Enquire about this picturePrice on request

Presentation: Framed
 Signed with monogram t.l.: ‘FB’
Oil on canvas, 200.7×200.7cm (79×79in)
Reference: Galloway 81
Provenance: Sir James Roberts, and by descent; Cyril Leeper; private collection
Exh: Berlin Academy, Berlin, 1912 (No 2773); Twentieth Spring Exhibition, Bradford, 1913 (No 157);  Venice Biennale, 1914 (No 1334) ; Exhibition of Paintings Drawings and Etchings by Frank Brangwyn, 184
Queen’s Gate, London, 1924 (No 55); Frank Brangwyn, Leeds, Bruges, Swansea, 2006
Lit: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1915, p95, 234
Ill: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London, 1915, facing p88;
NM Lazareva, Frenk Brengvin, Izobrazit, 1978, plate 28

The painting was awarded a gold medal at the Berlin Academy in 1912, and is one of Brangwyn’s seminal works.Brangwyn obviously had problems perfecting the sparkling brass pots and pans,writing to his friend RHKitson that he had ‘been trying to paint the brass pots and I feel wretched’, (37) but his efforts were not wasted,Shaw Sparrow noting that ‘their handling could not well be bettered’. (38)
 
The painting was purchased by Sir James Roberts (1848–1935). Born into
a poor farming family in Haworth,Yorkshire,Roberts started work at Saltaire Mill at the age of twelve and eventually succeeded Sir Titus Salt as owner of the mill. He established the chair of Russian at Leeds University in 1916, and in 1928 purchased and bequeathed to the nation the home of the Brontë family, Haworth parsonage. He probably purchased this particular work because his wife, Elizabeth Foster, had been brought up in Brass Castle, New Jersey.

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Presentation: Framed
78 x 78 in. (198 x 198 cm)
Provenance: Sir Alfred East RA ; Captain Winterbottom

Exhibited: New Gallery, 1902 (lent by East?); Venice Biennale, 1903; Venice Biennale, 1914; Queen's Gate, 1924 Catalogue: 58 (lent by H W [sic] Winterbottom, titled Cyder Press); St Louis International Exhibition, St Louis, 1904 Catalogue: 43

Literature: Shaw-Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co Ltd London 1915 p231 H Furst, The Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, The Bodley Head London 1924 p214 Art Journal, p85-86 March 1903, F Rinder, 'The Art of Frank Brangwyn' The Studio, p38 Vol 26, June 1902, 'Some Paintings and Sculpture at the London Spring Exhibitions' P Macer-Wright, Brangwyn, A Study of Genius at Close Quarters, Hutchinson & Co London p67 Illustrated: Shaw-Sparrow, The Spirit of the Age, London, 1905 plate 8 Amelia Defries, Frank Brangwyn RA, Master Craftsman, American Magazine of Art November 1924 11 Vol. 15p562 The Studio, p37 Vol 26, June 1902, 'Some Paintings and Sculpture at the London Spring Exhibitions' St Louis International Exhibition, St Louis 1904 p63 The British Art Journal, p41 Libby Horner, 'Brangwyn and the Horton House mystery'

Notes: Described as a ‘lyrical fantasy from the conditions of modern life’* portraying ‘the half-triumphant, half-sad sentiment of October’.* The oil shows two young boys and a nude toddler right foreground, lounging over baskets of gleaming apples and a beautiful pot, whilst to the left a man plays a flute, and others work at the press, the frame of which can be seen background right. The red shirt of the central figure provides a focus point. Although the painting is quite dark in tone there is a wonderful sense of light flickering through the central window of sky. There is something of the Old Masters in this painting, although the technique is vastly different, and a romantic yearning for the glories of rural England. Marion Spielman described this painting as ‘one of (Brangwyn’s) most opulent designs, such as Titian might rejoice in could he come to life in the twentieth century’,* and The Studio critic, less ostentatiously, called it 'masterly in handling and sumptuous in colour'.* Laurence Bradshaw noted in his copy of the Queen's Gate catalogue that the technique was 'earlier' and 'tighter' and commented on the unfortunate habit of owners of varnishing paintings with the result that they ended up brown and cracked when all they required was a little soap and water to remove dust and dirt. Rinder termed the oil a 'robust idealisation of an incident charged with beauty and with significance' and considered it a 'noteworthy attempt to express the half-triumphant, half-sad sentiment of October'. The RA sketchbooks have drawings of a cider press at Weford on Avon which may be related to this painting. In 1904 (17 January) Brangwyn wrote to Kitson that he was 'very sorry that the Cider Press is not going to Leeds, East wished it to go to St Louis, anyway next year you shall have it', and on 9 November 1907 he noted that, with East's approval, it was to be sent to the Salon in 1908. According to Macer-Wright, East purchased the work for £300 to help the younger artist out of financial difficulties, but the claim cannot be substantiated. There is no concrete evidence that after the early years Brangwyn was troubled by impecuniosity. From 1891 to 1894 he was able to afford two studios, he employed an assistant as early as 1895, and by 1902 was established and greatly in demand. Brangwyn borrowed the painting from East to send to an exhibition in Munich, but apparently the packing case was destroyed when on the docks at Tilbury. East recovered the canvas and had it relined and restored. It was sold later for £1400. In 1924 Furst recalled 'the beautiful early rich and mellow Cider-press which alone would secure to its author a place amongst the great masters'*, gracing the walls of Horton House (Colonel Winterbottom's residence). In a letter to de Belleroche, 8 April 1952, Brangwyn asks if he has been able to trace 'Sir Roberts of Saltair who had the Cider Press he was the partner of Sir Titus Salt who made the Town of Saltair in Yorkshire'. Some of his other suggestions of ownership in the letter were decidedly wrong so this comment may be misleading! * Shaw Sparrow, p231 * F Rinder, p82 * The Studio, p38 * Furst, p214

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram b.l.: ‘FB’
Oil on board, 64×63cm (25¼×24¾in)
Provenance: William Stewart, and by descent

Since this is a monochrome work it was probably painted as an illustration for a book or magazine.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram b.r.: ‘FB’. Also inscribed (probably in another hand) on surface: ‘Wilfred Jewson’ and  ‘xxxx/1917’
Oil on panel, 45.5×31.6cm (17⅞×12½in)
Provenance: William de Belleroche

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Presentation: Framed
Signed, dated and titled b.r.in red: ‘F Brangwyn 92 Gulur’
Oil on canvas, 52.1×59.7cm (20½×23½in)
Reference: Galloway 264
Provenance: William de Belleroche; Mr & Mrs J G Cluff; The Fine Art Society; private collection
Exh: Exhibition of Works by Frank Brangwyn RA, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull 1933 (No 29); The Fine Art Society, 2000
 
This scene, one of several Brangwyn painted of Spanish goatherds, was undertaken whilst travelling through Spain in 1892 in company with Arthur Melville. It is aptly described in an article Brangwyn wrote for The Studio:
‘Under the long shadows of a few poplars on the banks we could see a goatherd surrounded by flocks of black goats,looking like spots of ink on the sun-swept hills’.(33)

Brangwyn recorded that the two artists actually sketched a goatherd a few days later at Galar, as Brangwyn spelt it, Melville having persuaded the man to come down to the canal side.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated b.r.: ‘F BRANGWYN.88’
oil on canvas, 55.9×40.6cm (22×16in)
 
The painting shows the influence of Japanese art,in that the scrub and tree
branches were probably painted with a brush in which all the hairs are
separated, creating a ‘dragged’ effect. Brangwyn may have been taught the
technique by Thomas Joseph Larkin of the Japanese Gallery, London. (32)

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram and date b.l.:‘FB 1890’.
Inscribed with title verso:‘Turkish Fishermen’ Oil on board, 38×45cm (15×17¾in)
Provenance: Liss Fine Art; private collection Brangwyn travelled to Turkey in 1890, the results of his work being exhibited in his first one-man show, From the Scheldt to the Danube,at the Royal Arcade Gallery, London in March 1891. This brilliantly coloured oil is almost identical to a watercolour, Fishing Boats on the Danube, in the collection of The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This might lead one to assume that the oil is No 169 in Vincent Galloway’s, The Oils and Murals of Frank Brangwyn, but neither the size nor inscription match.Brangwyn, inspired by the scenery,possibly painted a number of similar compositions.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram b.r.: ‘FB’
Oil on board, 41x55.5cm (16⅛×21⅞in)
Provenance: The Fine Art Society; private collection
 
Quay may have been painted when Brangwyn visited Morocco with Dudley Hardy, the cartoonist and poster designer.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas, 43×52cm (16⅞×20½in)
Provenance: Mrs V Abbot; Liss Fine Art; private collection

Brangwyn and his friend, the artist Dudley Hardy, visited Morocco in 1893 and probably returned the following year for another sketching trip.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram b.l.: ‘FB’
Oil on canvas, 63.5×76cm (25×29⅞in)
Provenance: The Fine Art Society; private collection

Brangwyn is thought to have visited Venice for the first time in 1896. He designed the British Room for the Venice Biennale in 1905 and 1907 and always felt a strong association with the city and its celebrated tradition of painting. In 1922 he illustrated Edward Hutton’s book The Pageant of Venice. (34)
 
Venetian boat-building yards, known as squero,were a favourite subject of Brangwyn’s; he produced another five oils, three etchings and two watercolours on the same theme.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on board, 62×41.5cm (24⅜×16¼in)
Provenance: private collection
Ill: Scribner’s Magazine, cover, Vol XXXVIII, October 1905

This painting demonstrates two salient points about Brangwyn’s working practice. Firstly his ‘pattern book’working process, by which figures would be re-used, irrespective of changes in context or the passage of time. On 7 May 1921, Frank Alford wrote that he was working on one of the murals for Jefferson City: ‘FB thinks of taking out the figures on the extreme [left] being a man carrying a large basket of fruit on his head,& putting in its place a figure of a boy on a ladder pulling fruit.The same boy was used in one of FB’s series for Scribner’s magazine.’ (36)

Secondly, despite the fact that Brangwyn was financially secure by 1905, he continued to accept commercial commissions,partly because he found it difficult to refuse any challenge, but mainly because by these means he could introduce art to a wider audience. The gold painted bar across the painting relates directly to the format of the magazine cover.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram b.r.: ‘FB’
Oil on board, 63.5×76.2cm (25×30in)
Provenance: Barbizon House; unknown; Sotheby’s, London, 3 October 1975, Lot 214; private collection
 
There is a Barbizon House sticker verso,and Barbizon House had an apparently identical painting c 1926, described as oil on millboard, measuring 20×35in. The painting may be Galloway 732 (see fn II).
 
The scene is the lagoon slightly east of the Punta de Dogana, with the Dogana faintly visible background left.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram and date b.r.: ‘FB 1914’
Oil on canvas, 127×121.9cm (50×48in)
Reference: Galloway 308
Provenance: Barbizon House (1926); private collection (UK)
Exh: Barbizon House, 1926 (cat 4)
Lit and Ill: Barbizon House Record, 1926
 
The Barbizon House record noted that:
‘There is a fine massive confusedness in this remarkable painting. The busy scene is filled with the movement of many strong figures, some occupied with the ephemeral passing of the fish-catch of the morning, while others are equally busy with the more permanent building of a good ship of the future.

The artist has aimed at producing a grand decorative scheme showing the scaffolding reaching to the ribs of the vessel and the active movement ofthe workers in full swing, each absorbed in his own labour.’

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas, 104×142cm (40⅞×55⅞in)
Provenance: Campion Hall, Oxford (presented to Father M C D’Arcy by Brangwyn);
The Fine Art Society; private collection
Ill: Herbert Furst, The Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, London: The Bodley Head, 1924, facing p143
 
After World War I, Brangwyn was commissioned to produce Stations of the Cross for Arras Cathedral through the recommendation of his friend, the artist, Theophile Steinlen (1859–1923; see p22). Reproductions of the Stations were to be distributed to other war damaged churches. Unfortunately the series was never completed.It was generally reported that this was due to the death of the model Cervi, although we know from Frank Alford’s diary that Marco Jafrato also posed as Christ. (41)The deaths of Brangwyn’s wife, Lucy, and Steinlen himself may have had more to do with the failure of the commission.
 
Studies or completed panels have been discovered for 10 of the 14 Stations. The work was illustrated in Herbert Furst’s book The Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, facing p143. Brangwyn subsequently altered the painting and inserted his self portrait on the right, offering succour to Christ, probably before presenting the work to Father D’Arcy (c1935). (42)