Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., R.W.S. 1858-1929

Andrew Gibson, Stanley House, Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire until the early 1960s;
London, Fine Art Society, where bought in 1963 by the present owner

B. D. Price, The Registers of Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), 1983, cat. no. R896 'Figure Standing'

STRUCTURE The panel is generally sound, slightly bowed off the left edge. CATALOGUE COMPARISON The catalogue illustration is broadly representative. PAINT SURFACE The paint surface is in good, clean condition; ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET UV light reveals a few touches of infilling to the boy's chest, upper left. No further signs of restoration. FRAME Held in a later wood and composite frame in fair condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The models for After the Bathe of 1921 were Charlie Mitchell and Leo Marshall, batman to Tuke's friend Lieutenant Colonel Sydney Lomer of the Lancashire Fusiliers and the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Lomer was a dashing young man, independently wealthy and fond of fast cars and lively house parties held on the Norfolk coast, at least one of which Tuke is known to have attended. Marshall had left the army at the same time as Lomer and accompanied him on visits to Swanpool. It is not known to what extent Leo modelled for Tuke but Charlie Mitchell was a regular model that appeared in many of the artist's major paintings. Mitchell had been invalided from the Navy during the last year of the war and Tuke was relieved that he returned to Cornwall to look after Tuke's boat and to work as his personal assistant and principal model. Many young men had died during the conflicts, including Tuke's model Nicola Lucciani, and those who returned bore the scars of the war, both physically and psychologically. Tuke continued to paint idyllic images of male beauty and the glories of the outdoors that he had begun to paint before the conflicts began, but after 1918 the pictures made a more poignant statement about the need to protect that which the young men had fought to preserve; youth and natural beauty.

In his post-war paintings Tuke favoured simpler compositions with one or two naked bathers painted en plein air within sunlit coves. He particularly favoured compositions in which one boy is seated on the beach whilst another stands beside, perhaps holding a towel or a garment. The most significant of these pictures are Under the Western Sun of c.1918 (private collection), Facing South of 1920 (unlocated) and Aquamarine of 1928 (private collection). Another painting from the same series is entitled The Bathing Place (sold in these rooms, 14 December 2006, lot 193). After the Bathe was painted in the sheltered Sunny Cove and Newport Beach, which were barely accessible by foot along a precipitous and overgrown cliff path. Therefore Tuke and Marshall were able to reach the coves by row boat ably steered by the expert hand of Charlie Mitchell without fear that they would be disturbed as the boys posed naked beneath the summer sun. The sandy bays were littered with large boulders which cast interesting shadows upon the white beaches whilst the seabed could be seen beneath the clear shallow waters, providing contrasts of turquoise and green to the ultramarine depths.