Samuel John Peploe

Christie's, Edinburgh, 1 November 2001, lot 88;
Private collection

STRUCTURE The panel is sound. There is a tiny piece of missing panel with a resulting area of lifting paint in the lower right corner, which would need refilling and supporting. The surface is dirty with a discoloured varnish and should benefit from cleaning, otherwise it appears in good overall condition with rich passages of impasto. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT UV light reveals no apparent signs of retouching. FRAME Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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The present work is likely to date from the summer of 1904 when Peploe and Fergusson travelled to Brittany together.  It is not clear exactly when the two artists met but they became close friends and inspirational colleagues.  Fergusson records, 'When we met, S.J. and I immediately became friends and I found great stimulation in telling him my ideas about art.  We discussed everything.  Those were the days of George Morre, Henry James, Meredith, Wilde, Whistler, Arthur Symons and Walter Pater.  I remember sitting on the rocks at the extreme North of Islay and reading Walter Pater's essay on the Mona Lisa and discussing it with S.J....we were very much interested in the lastest music and its relation to modern painting.'  The reference to Whistler is interesting as there were numerous exhibitions around this time following his death in 1903.  His studied, disciplined pallet and application of paint influenced numerous Scottish artists and is clearly evident in Peploe and Fergusson's work throughout the first decade of the 20th century.

The development of Peploe's style employed in the present work really began following his first visit to Paris in 1900.  Having returned to Scotland he worked at Comrie and paintings such as A Street, Comrie, 1900 (private collection) and Spring, Comrie, 1902 (Kirkcaldy Museum) with their watery light and rapid, repetitious brushstrokes are directly influenced by the works of Sisley and Pisarro.  By 1903 his work was more fluid, with single long, broad brushtrokes, creating key the elements of a composition.  His competence with this method really peaked around the period of the present work where figures are brilliantly evoked and rendered with the slightest flash of colour.  This technique is used for the landscape as well as the figurative elements of the painting resulting in a harmonious and lyrical composition.