CAC RCA
1865 - 1924
Canadian
The Oyster Beds: Cancale
oil on canvas
signed and on verso titled on the Watson Art Galleries label and certified by Watson Art Galleries
13 3/4 x 18 1/4 in, 34.9 x 46.4 cm
Estimate: $80,000 - $120,000 CAD
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PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Vichy, France
Jacques Dubourg, Paris
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, 1936
Private Collection, Ottawa, 1947
Private Collection, California
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby's Canada in association with Ritchie's, May 25, 2009, lot 20
Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Donald W. Buchanan, James Wilson Morrice, 1936, listed with description page 159
Lucie Dorais, "James Wilson Morrice: Les années de formation," MA thesis, University of Montreal, 1980, reproduced figure 90, titled as Les parcs à huîtres, to illustrate the section on Cancale, 1896
Charles C. Hill, Morrice, A Gift to the Nation: The G. Blair Laing Collection, National Gallery of Canada, 1992, page 41, the circa 1896 oil on canvas entitled La Bretonne, collection of the National Gallery of Canada, reproduced page 43, figure 5a
James Wilson Morrice first visited the fishing port of Cancale in Brittany around 1892 to 1893, and the painting Rocher de Cancale, with oyster beds in the foreground, dates from that trip. In 1896, Morrice returned to Cancale, as documented in letters to his American friend Robert Henri, who was at Moret-sur-Loing with his students. Morrice had planned to spend the whole summer in Saint-Malo but soon left for Cancale, which was only 15 kilometres away. Charles Hill wrote that “Morrice found the town, its harbour, and its inhabitants so attractive that he stayed for over a month.” From June 6 to July 9, he painted the oyster beds, beach scenes and boats in the harbour.
There are abundant drawings in Morrice’s Sketchbook #2, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and together with sketches and small canvases, these prove that he was very productive in Cancale during the 1896 trip. Among the works he painted is the very similar painting Breton Women Walking Among Oyster Beds, Cancale, in the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Morrice had a romantic vision of the past in the French countryside, in which people subsisted in traditional ways – like gathering oysters. Cancale was well known for its native oysters with flat shells, called the Belon. Men went to sea to collect oysters from their fishing grounds, then dropped them in their personal “beds” at high tide, while women and children waited for low tide to sort them.
In The Oyster Beds: Cancale, Morrice’s colour palette has a harmonious resonance. The sandy ground is a kind of putty colour, very soft and sensual, with highlights of blue, cream and pink. The painting has an even light and close, light tonal values. The water in the oyster beds reflects the pale blue sky and the sticks or weirs that define the edges of the beds. The two young oyster gatherers in the foreground are dressed in traditional clothing, the boy with his beret and scarf, the girl with her bonnet—traditional dress for the area around Cancale. The girl is similar in dress and hairstyle to the girl wearing a pink dress and white bonnet featured in front of oyster beds and weirs in La Bretonne, a circa 1896 Morrice canvas in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
The deserted, beached boat in the distance gives a poignant feeling to the scene; it also draws our attention to the horizon line of pale blue ocean and an intriguing pale, yellowish sky that brings light into the scene and harmonizes with the tone of the sandy ground. Morrice’s brushwork could be described as luscious in its sensuality.
Morrice returned to Paris in early August, possibly through Saint-Malo. The body of work that he created during this short time in Cancale stands as unique and marvellously atmospheric. The Oyster Beds: Cancale is an outstanding work from this part of his oeuvre.
We thank Lucie Dorais for her assistance with the cataloguing of this painting. This work will be included in Dorais’s forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.
Estimate: $80,000 - $120,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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