SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE RSA
1871 - Edinburgh - 1935
Ref: CD 159
Still life of roses in a blue and white vase
Signed lower right: Peploe
Oil on canvas: 22 x 20 in / 55.9 x 50.8 cm
Frame size: 31 x 29 in / 78.7 x 73.7 cm
In a Louis XIV style carved and gilded frame
Painted in the 1920s
Provenance:
Sir Patrick Ford, from the artist, then by descent to his daughter;
Mrs Marjorie Murray
Christie’s Scotland, 11th December 1986, lot 212
Duncan Miller, London
Private collection, UK
Sotheby’s London, 29th September 2010, lot 92;
private collection, UK, acquired from the above
Exhibited:
Hampstead, Duncan Miller Fine Arts, The Scottish Colourists, 1987
London, Richard Green, SJ Peploe: Landscapes, Still Lifes, Roses, May 2017, cat. no.11, illus. in colour
This exceptional, dramatic work exemplifies Guy Peploe’s description of ‘the brilliant, jazz-age still-lives that are associated with the early 1920s...some of the most sumptuous, heady paintings of Peploe’s career.’[1] Painted in his large, luminescent studio at 54 Shadwick Place, Edinburgh, previously occupied by the painter James Patterson (1854-1932), Peploe set to work dressing the stark, white set for his theatrical still lifes using swathes of different coloured fabrics bought from Whytock and Reid, the renowned Edinburgh decorators and furnishers, here dark blue, white, emerald green and acid yellow to highlight the glorious roses centre stage.
From 1914 onwards, Peploe endeavoured to paint the perfect still life and he applied himself to his cause with great purpose. Peploe’s friend and fellow artist, Stanley Cursiter, wrote in his biography that the 1920s marked a time where Peploe had ‘reached a stage at which his new technique was fully formed. The war years had been a time of preparation, intensive study, and concentration on the problems of colour, form, and lighting. He was like a coiled spring awaiting merely the opportunity to expand.’[2]
The original owner of this striking work was Sir Patrick Ford, 1st Baronet (1880-1945), Solicitor General for Scotland and later MP for Edinburgh, a renowned connoisseur and collector of contemporary Scottish art. Ford was a school friend and loyal patron of FCB Cadell and also commissioned Sir John Lavery to paint a number of family portraits, after the completion of his weekend retreat at Westerdunes, North Bewick.
[1] Guy Peploe, SJ Peploe 1871-1935, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 2000, pp. 66-67.
[2] Stanley Cursiter, Peploe: An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of his Work, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., London 1947, p.51.
