Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

John Gair, Glasgow;
Purchased from the above by William Bowie Junr, Glasgow, 1939

London, Portland Gallery, S. J. Peploe, 8 - 29 November 2012, no.2.

The canvas has been lined. There is a small abrasion in the upper left corner and one or two minor, isolated hairline cracks left of the decanter, only visible upon close inspection. Otherwise the work appears in good overall condition, clean and ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals some minor infilling to the above mentioned cracks. Held in a moulded plaster frame.
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1905 was an significant year in Peploe's development as an artist, when he embarked on a series of still lifes characterised by dark backgrounds as seen in the present painting, and which are regarded as some of his most important works. In the 1890s, Peploe studied first in Paris where he was greatly influenced by the work of Edouard Manet and then in Holland where he discovered the still life painting of Frans Hals. From a distillation of these influences he developed his own tonal style. The predominately dark backgrounds of the period were contrasted with exuberantly applied creamy light tones, illustrated here in the bold white highlights on the decanter and glass, the forms of which are suggested by no more than a few deft, flowing strokes of the brush. This mastery of the fluid, Whistlerian style of painting signalled Peploe's arrival upon the Scottish art scene as one of the most talented and promising artists of his generation.

He was soon to abandon this formula, much to the annoyance of the dealer McOmish Dott who had already established a demand for the pictures, in favour of a more highly keyed post-impressionist style. The rarity of these early pictures has made them some of the most desirable of his entire oeuvre, culminating in the record price achieved for The Coffee Pot, of the same year, sold in 2011 for £937,250 (Christie’s, 26 May 2011, lot 85).