WILFRID GABRIEL DE GLEHN, R.A. | THE RAINBOW

The artist's studio estate, Atelier no.293b;

Messum's Fine Art, London, where purchased by the present owner in 2008

The Royal Academy Illustrated, 1938, illustrated p.46, in its original form;

The Times, 'The Royal Academy Exhibition: Artists at Work', 17 March 1938, illustrated p.38, in its original form;

Dr Jane Hamilton, In Search of a Golden Age, Works from the Studio Estate of Wilfrid and Jane de Glehn, exh.cat., Buckinghamshire, 2008, p.90, illustrated p.91

London, Royal Academy, 1938, no.15;

London, Messum's Fine Art, In Search of a Golden Age, Works from the Studio Estate of Wilfrid and Jane de Glehn, 2008, no.90

Employing a similar colour palette to de Glehn's friend and painting companion John Singer Sargent, with whom he travelled on various painting excursions, The Rainbow conflates de Glehn’s love of the Mediterranean coast with Sargent’s influence on his painting, even in the year’s after Sargent’s death in 1925. Initially conceptualised in several preparatory sketches, The Rainbow was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1938 and photographed that same year for The Times. Captured upon the artist’s easel, the photograph shows the work in its original, larger size, confirming that it was revisited following its completion and cut down, perhaps to place greater emphasis on the figures.