Nathaniel Hone the Younger R.H.A. 1831-1917

SOLD

Mediterranean Coastal Scene. Beaulieu, near Nice

Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 101.5 cm.

Provenance: possibly, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1883, no. 19, ‘Beaulieu, near Nice’, £50

Nathaniel Hone depicts a sunlit bay in the Mediterranean. The scene is viewed from sloping cliffs, giving a panoramic view of the landscape, with golden-pink cliffs and beach reflected in the bay. The sea deepens to a deeper blue on the right, while the sky is a lighter, alluring blue. Painted on a wide canvas, the composition is carefully balanced, with, on the left foreground, a sloping bank upon which palm trees and aloe plants are growing, 'echoed' by the fishing boat in the bay, men at work on board, furled sails reflected in the water.

Hone employs loose scuffed brushstrokes in the foreground. Yet the sky is of an even blue, and there is a crispness in the horizon line of the sea, the trunk of the tall palm which catches the light, and the sinuous, viridian leaves of the aloe plants. The warm colours, pink and golds, blues and greens, evoke the pearly light, translucent atmosphere and warmth of the Mediterranean, conveying a mood of calm. We almost feel that we are present there, perhaps looking through a window at the scene. The location of the picture is the stretch of coast known as 'Petite Afrique' at Beaulieu on the French Riviera. Hone was inspired by this location. He made several visits to it, and painted a series of oils and watercolours there.

Travellers had been attracted to the Riviera since the eighteenth century, although with its indented coastline, precipitous corniches and poor roads, access from the land was difficult. But the arrival of the railway line at Cannes in 1863 and at Nice in 1864, opened up the region to wealthy tourists. Painters were attracted to the South of France, too. For example, Hone’s friends from Barbizon; Ziem to Marseilles and Martigues; Harpignies to Nice and Villefranche; Edward Lear to Villefranche; Cézanne at Aix-en-Provence; Berthe Morisot to Nice, and Renoir to Beaulieu. Many illustrated books and articles by French, English and German writers were published, extolling the beauties of the Riviera, its beaches, fishing villages, beautiful gardens and temperate climate.(1)

Hone had already spent many years in France during the 1850s and 1860s, studying in Paris and painting landscape at Barbizon, and visiting the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. He returned to Ireland in c.1872, and married Magdalen Jameson. During the 1870s and 1880s he made several visits to the Mediterranean, painting at many locations along the coast: at Cannes, Antibes, Nice and Villefranche, St.Jean-Cap Ferrat and Beaulieu, Eze, Menton, Cap St. Martin, and across the border to Bordighera in Italy. The sunshine, blue skies and golden light were a revelation to him, as to many artists,(2) and he was attracted to the delicately shaped fishing boats and exotic Mediterranean plants, such as palm trees, umbrella pines and aloes. He was inspired to paint some of the finest works of his career there. A keen yachtsman himself, it is possible that on some occasions he sailed to the Mediterranean; some of his paintings seem to have been viewed from offshore, or from quaysides or promontories. It is of interest to note that Hone’s earliest exhibits at the RHA were of Mediterranean subjects.

Hone made small watercolour and oil studies, and based some of his larger canvases upon these. Many of his finest Riviera paintings were situated near Beaulieu at the stretch of coast known as 'Petite Afrique'. Detlaf Harguth has identified this as being at Beaulieu-sur-Mer.(3) This was a small fishing village, situated east of Nice and Villefranche. It enjoyed one of the most temperate, sunny climates in winter, the name 'Petite Afrique' ('little Africa') being given to a stretch of beach. Hone's series of paintings included the watercolour Voyage, France, 1873, which features a curving bay, with a tree on the left casting shadow, figures on the sunlit beach, a white sail in the sea, and mountainous cliffs behind. This watercolour may be a study for Hone's large canvas Petite Afrique, (exhibited at the Gorry Gallery in 1987), showing a similar view, with lovely colouring, of the rosy sunlit bay, and the figure of a woman on the beach, although without the boat in the sea. Thomas Bodkin suggested that the figure of the woman who appeared in several pictures may be that of the artist's wife Magdalen.(4)

A small canvas, dated 1878 (private collection, Germany), features the motif from closer to the bay, cliffs and mountains, viewed from a bluff in the foreground. This painting has a crispness of execution and warmth of colouring, showing fishing boats drawn up on the beach, a sail in the bay, the sunlit pinkish textures of the cliffs and mountains reflected in the sea.(5)

The present Gorry Gallery picture gives a fuller, panoramic view of the motif, viewed from a headland further back, grassy cliffs in the foreground, palms and aloes, and a fishing boat in the bay, and is perhaps Hone's most extensive view of his Petite Afrique series. It is possible that this is the picture entitled Beaulieu, near Nice which Hone exhibited at the RHA in 1883. In other visits the artist painted in Italy, Greece and Egypt. These sunny, colourful, light-filled watercolours and oils form a unique body of work in Hone's oeuvre.

Julian Campbell, April 2023

1. see Patrick Howarth, When the Rivera was ours, London, 1977; Domenico Astengo, et al. La Riviera Illustrata itinerario bibliographio, 1864-1930, Alassio, 1996.

2. see Jean-Paul Potron and Sylvain Amic, Paysage de Nice, Villefranche-Beaulieu du XVII au XX siècle, Nice, 2000; and Patrick J. Murphy.

3. Correspondence from Detlaf Garguth, of Reutlingen, Germany, July 2006. I am very grateful to Herr Harguth for supplying valuable information on Hone’s Petite Afrique paintings to me.

4. Thomas Bodkin, Four Irish Landscape Painters, Dublin and London 1920, facing plate xvii.

5. Hone’s Beaulieu and Petite Afrique series include: (a) Petite Afrique, drawing (Gorry Gallery, 1987, no.4); (b) Watercolour study (Gorry Gallery, 1987, no.5); (c) Voyage, France, watercolour, 1873, (Important Irish Art, Whyte’s 30th November 2015, lot. 100); (d) Study for Petite Afrique, oil, (Gorry Gallery, 1987, no.6); (e) Petite Afrique, (Gorry Gallery, 1987, no.7); (f) Petite Afrique, Beaulieu, (private collection, Germany); and the present canvas, (g) Beaulieu, near Nice, (Gorry Gallery, 2023).