Winslow Homer : Le Tréport harbour

 

 

Winslow Homer : Le Tréport harbour
end of 19th century, watercolour/paper, 28,5 x 19 cm
signature: LR Winslow Homer
starting price 90.000 €
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Sea waves flows around and gently sways with moored barges. Sounds of crashing waves into the barge’s hulls and voices of fishermen and merchants, who have just docked in the harbour are echoing in the Le Tréport harbour. Rays of the setting sun lights up the sea surface and makes everyone aware, that the day is nearly over.

Winslow Homer (1836 – 1910), one of the most significant American artists of the 19^th century and a major figure of American art at all. An artist of the late 19^th century, right on the edge of realism, naturalism and impressionism, whose work is mainly characterized by painting landscapes and nautical motives or portraits. He often used the aquarelle technique for his work, and he had a great impact on making the watercolours popular and as one of the significant artistic way of expression.

“Le Tréport harbour” represents artist’s precise technique, when it comes to watercolour painting. Fine lines of the barge’s hulls and especially detailed sea reflections are the prove, that this is really a masterpiece.

According to Artprice.com, there has been already more than 540 sales of Homer's artworks and the oldest auction result ever registered on this website was sold in 1983. Homer's artworks are collector's and investment sought-after items for many years already and some of them are also part of world's leading art collections.

In 1867, which is very likely the year of creation of this artwork, Winslow Homer went to France on the occasion of Wordl’s Fair in Paris, where one of his Civil War pictures was exhibited. This occasion was Homer’s breakthrough and he became well known for public and his work gain fair popularity. Homer used this opportunity to visit France, where he admired the work of Impressionists and captured a lot of new inspiration for upcoming years.

This artwork for sale dates back to his visit of France, where he also travelled out of Paris and portrayed o lot of motives. Most of the done work were small watercolour paintings. On this painting he captured one of many moments out of French Le Téport harbour, which is so typical for its lighthouse. Precisely made barges are very likely to be a part of the Austro-Hungarian merchant fleet, because one of the portrayed masts has their flag on the top. This flag was used by the monarchy since 1867, when also Homer visited France, until the year of 1918. This gives us a little bit of help when dating back the painting. Very interesting part of this painting is also its signature. Homer was well known for his variations of signatures on his artworks and throughout his working years, he used to make different signatures on his paintings. Inside the restoration protocol is mentioned, that this signature has a bit of fuzzy edges. This is a proof, that the signing of this artwork happened shortly after finishing the painting, just before it completely dried up. Colour of the signature mixed a little bit with the colour of the background and it created these fuzzy edges.

The painting is right now a part of significant East Slovakian art collection, but the whole provenience is very interesting. The aristocratic family of Bornemisza was spread around a lot of European cities and its members were famous for collecting artworks. During the years, the whole family managed to collect a large number of different artworks and one of fairly represented painters in their collection was also Winslow Homer. To this day, a lot of Homer’s artworks may be seen in the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, which was founded by members of this family and is one of the most significant museums in the Spanish capital. Members of the Bornemisza family were also settled for some time in Slovakian city Košice and some of them stayed there till the beginning of the 21^st century. Thanks to their existence in these parts of Europe, this painting was brought to Slovak and Czech countries.

With the painting comes also a restoration protocol, which was done by Z. Machatová and Mgr. art. B. Němečková, ArtD. There is also attached a drawing, which was a part of the back side of this painting and during the restoration was removed.