ALBERT JOSEPH MOORE, A.R.W.S. | STARS

Noel Ranger collection;

Christie's, London, 29 February 1980, lot 84, where purchased by Seymour Stein

Stars was probably painted in 1890 shortly after Moore completed and exhibited one of his greatest pictures, A Summer Night (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) which he had begun six years earlier. In A Summer Night Moore arranged four semi-nude women on a lakeside terrace against a background of a starry night sky. With Stars Moore condensed the same gold and black colour scheme into his image of a solitary, heavily-draped female figure in a starlit garden. The nocturnal setting for Stars and A Summer Night probably reflect the influence of Moore’s friend Whistler, who was famous for his night scenes, including Nocturne, Trafalgar Square, Snow (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington) which belonged to Moore. Like Whistler, Moore’s art was not concerned with narrative but with arrangement of rhythmic forms and harmonies of colour. In pictures such as Stars the title refers to a minor detail and the picture is an almost abstract study of Aesthetic principles of colour.

‘His late paintings evince a tenderness and sensuality that suggest his renewed interest in expressing the poignance and passion of human life.’ Robyn Asleson, Albert Moore, 2000, p.177