Albert Joseph Moore - The Dreamers

http://victorianweb.org/painting/moore/paintings/king.html

Albert Joseph Moore - Anemones 1872

http://victorianweb.org/painting/moore/paintings/2.html

Albert Joseph Moore - Battledore 1872

http://victorianweb.org/painting/moore/paintings/1.html

Albert Joseph Moore - A Decorator

Signed with anthemion l.r, indistinctly signed and inscribed on the stretcher; No 5 A

Decorator/A.Moore/1 Holland Lane/Kensington W

oil on canvas

50 by 22 cm., 19 ½ by 8 ½ in.



ESTIMATE 60,000-80,000 GBP

Lot Sold: 61,250 GBP



PROVENANCE

Mrs. Harris Holland, 1894;

Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read, 1972;

Fine Art Society, London;

Pre-Raphaelite Trust, London;

Private collection



EXHIBITED

London, Grosvenor Gallery, 1887, no. 5;

London, Royal Academy, Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Art: The Handley-Read Collection, 1972, no. D146;

London, Fine Art Society, The Aesthetic Movement and the Cult of Japan, 1972, no. 37;

London, Fine Art Society, The Paintings, Water-colours and Drawings from the Handley-Read Collection, 1974, no.

50;

York, City Art Gallery and London, Julian Hartnoll Gallery, The Moore Family Pictures, 1980,

no.74



LITERATURE

A. L. Baldry, Albert Moore, His Life and Works. London, 1894, pp. 61 & 105, illus. p. 22;

Robyn Asleson, Albert Moore, 200, pp. 204, 207



Albert Joseph Moore's A Decorator shows a young woman in classical draperies standing at a doorway, her left hand resting on the jamb and in her right holding a vase of flowers. She looks out into the open, as if ascertaining the state of the weather, but no larger drama is implied. The title of the painting, which is borne since it was displayed in the West Gallery of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1887, seems simply to refer to the action which she is presumably about to undertake of placing the vase of flowers in some carefully considered position in the rooms of the house. The only information that can be gleaned about the house itself is the decoration of the floor, which is patterned in the squares of dark and light, the lines of perspective of which run away into the shadowy depths.



Alfred Lys Baldry confirms the date of 1887 for the present painting. Richard Green has written of A Decorator and another work entitled The Painted Wardrobe (York City Art Gallery) of 1886: 'Moore's work of the second half of the 1880s shows a comparative simplification' after the more richly patterned surfaces with which he had previously experimented. These two works are 'conceived boldly and simply and the paint itself is broadly handled ... The broad, painterly technique of The Painted Wardrobe and A Decorator undoubtedly reflects the influence of Velasquez, as does the black and dark greys as colours in their own right in the late 1880s, here exemplified in the background of A Decorator.' (The Moore Family Pictures, exhibition catalogue, York City Art Gallery, 1980, p. 30). A Decorator belonged to Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read, the pioneering collectors of British Victorian and early twentieth-century paintings and decorative arts was displayed in their house in Ladbroke Road until the time of their tragic deaths in 1971. It was included in the exhibition of paintings and drawings from the collection held at the Fine Art Society in 1974. Its earlier history is not known, but an anecdote survives of the Handley-Reads', at an early stage of their joint careers as collectors, purchasing 'an enchanting little Albert Moore, paid for by Lavinia', and how they knocked the Kensington dealer who offered the painting down from £5 to £4 / 10s, 'and felt slightly ashamed of doing so!' (Thomas Stainton, 'Introduction', The Paintings Watercolours & Drawings from the Handley-Read Collection, exhibition catalogue, Fine Art Society, London, 1974, not paginated.) The Handley-Reads had at least one other painting by Moore, but it is tempting to think that the painting referred to may have been the present A Decorator.



http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2008/victorian-edwardian-art-l08131#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L08131.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L08131.html/15/

Albert Joseph Moore - Shuttlecock

Albert Joseph Moore - study for A Summer Night

new display at the Walker Art Gallery will help those of us mourning the passing of the summer (what we had of it), cope with the transition.

'A study for A Summer Night', acquired for the gallery with assistance from the Art Fund charity, has gone on display alongside an accompanying preparatory watercolour and the final oil painting, both from the gallery’s permanent collection.

Seen together for the first time the trio reveal Moore made several changes to the composition, but that the vivid colours remained constant: primrose yellow and nocturnal blue. The lazy summer evening scene is a typical example of the Aesthetic movement, in which artists would strive to combine colour and mood.

The drawing was the earliest in the series (1884-6), followed by the watercolour (1890) with the final oil finished and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890. Moore laid down the ideas in the initial sketch and used the watercolour to mark up a grid so that he could size up the study to oil painting dimensions. His dedication was such that he worked solidly on the painting for around three years.


It was his last major work before his death in 1893.

Albert Joseph Moore - Shuttlecock

Albert Joseph Moore - study for A Summer Night

new display at the Walker Art Gallery will help those of us mourning the passing of the summer (what we had of it), cope with the transition.

'A study for A Summer Night', acquired for the gallery with assistance from the Art Fund charity, has gone on display alongside an accompanying preparatory watercolour and the final oil painting, both from the gallery’s permanent collection.

Seen together for the first time the trio reveal Moore made several changes to the composition, but that the vivid colours remained constant: primrose yellow and nocturnal blue. The lazy summer evening scene is a typical example of the Aesthetic movement, in which artists would strive to combine colour and mood.

The drawing was the earliest in the series (1884-6), followed by the watercolour (1890) with the final oil finished and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890. Moore laid down the ideas in the initial sketch and used the watercolour to mark up a grid so that he could size up the study to oil painting dimensions. His dedication was such that he worked solidly on the painting for around three years.


It was his last major work before his death in 1893.

Albert Joseph Moore - Jasmine

Albert Joseph Moore - Reading Aloud, 1884

Albert Joseph Moore - Jasmine

Albert Joseph Moore - Reading Aloud, 1884

Albert Joseph Moore - Female Figure Study

Albert Joseph Moore - Female Figure Study

Albert Joseph Moore - Cartoon for 'An Idyll'

Price Realized £50,450

pencil and black chalk, on paper
31¾ x 28½ in. (80.7 x 72.4 cm.)

This is the full-scale cartoon for Moore's painting An Idyll in the Manchester City Art Gallery. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1895, the picture was his last exhibited canvas. It betrays the interest in narrative and symbolism that marks such a radical departure in his very late works and is generally related to the illness he suffered during the last years of his life. The chief expression of this tendency is The Loves of the Winds and the Seasons (Blackburn Art Gallery), completed only about a week before his death on 25 September 1893.

A pastel study for An Idyll, now missing, was in Moore's memorial exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, London, in 1894, and a study for the girl's head (black chalk on tracing paper, 15 x 11 5/8 in.) was lent by a private collector to the exhibition Albert Moore and his Contemporaries held at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1972, no. 75.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=7&intObjectID=5451290&sid=94259890-b0ce-4b69-b0f5-38c9dc37555e

Albert Joseph Moore - Cartoon for 'An Idyll'

Price Realized £50,450

pencil and black chalk, on paper
31¾ x 28½ in. (80.7 x 72.4 cm.)

This is the full-scale cartoon for Moore's painting An Idyll in the Manchester City Art Gallery. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1895, the picture was his last exhibited canvas. It betrays the interest in narrative and symbolism that marks such a radical departure in his very late works and is generally related to the illness he suffered during the last years of his life. The chief expression of this tendency is The Loves of the Winds and the Seasons (Blackburn Art Gallery), completed only about a week before his death on 25 September 1893.

A pastel study for An Idyll, now missing, was in Moore's memorial exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, London, in 1894, and a study for the girl's head (black chalk on tracing paper, 15 x 11 5/8 in.) was lent by a private collector to the exhibition Albert Moore and his Contemporaries held at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1972, no. 75.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=7&intObjectID=5451290&sid=94259890-b0ce-4b69-b0f5-38c9dc37555e

Albert Joseph Moore - Charity

CARITAS (CHARITY)
signed with an anthemion l.r.
coloured pastels on grey paper
130 by 56cm., 51 by 22in.

Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 85,250 GBP

The present drawing was apparently based upon a design for a memorial window and depicts a mother in classical robes accompanied by children. It has been dated to c.1890 and is a beautiful example of Moore's later work. The pastel is similar to a group of drawings owned by the famous department store founder Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty (sold in these rooms, 6 October 1980, lots 61-64). Pastel was a medium that Moore used increasingly in later years with great expression as Robyn Asleson has explained; 'Lending itself to subtle nuance, pastel moderated Moore's
rigorously analytical approach to composition. The female body, which he had long endeavoured to render dispassionately, attained greater sensuality in his last works.' (Robyn Asleson, Albert Moore, 2000, p.193) These drawings were not mere studies and have an intensity of their own and depict delicate subjects of human emotion;

'Intimations of love and affection merely hinted at in earlier compositions became overt themes in Moore's later pastels and related works. The bond between mother and child provided the subject of Caritas, a nearly life-size pastel...' (op. cit) It is possible that Caritas owes elements of its composition and subject to a painting of the same title by Edward Burne-Jones completed in 1885 (collection of Lord Lloyd Webber), particularly the naked child held in the mother's arms and the older child half-hidden behind her robes.

Albert Joseph Moore - Door of a Wardrobe

Albert Joseph Moore - Pansies, c.1875