Herbert DALZIEL
(London 1853 - Kent 1941)
The Kiln
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Oil and pastel on paper laid down on board.
Inscribed and dated “The Kiln” / Oil Pastel / Painted by Herbert Dalziel / 1910 on a label pasted onto the backing board.
167 x 117 mm. (6 5/8 x 4 5/8 in.) [sight]
Inscribed and dated “The Kiln” / Oil Pastel / Painted by Herbert Dalziel / 1910 on a label pasted onto the backing board.
167 x 117 mm. (6 5/8 x 4 5/8 in.) [sight]
Dated 1910, this delicate landscape, painted in oil pastel on paper, is among a small group of plein-air studies that remained in Herbert Dalziel’s studio at the time of his death. These refined, subtle landscapes show the particular influence of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose work was reproduced by Dalziel Brothers and who Herbert Dalziel knew in person. Part of a small group of paintings, pastels and oil sketches in which he adopted a Neo-Impressionist technique, the present sheet is one of the first works by Dalziel to reveal his interest in capturing atmospheric effects in his landscapes. As Kenneth McConkey has noted, ‘In an extraordinary departure, around 1910, Herbert Dalziel abandoned his conservative style and produced a number of jewel-like landscapes which adopt a sophisticated divisionism...At face value these might be regarded as belated emulations of Seurat, although the sense of atmosphere and weird luminosity draws comparisons with contemporary photography and the mystic landscapes of [Fernand] Khnopff.’
The son of Thomas Dalziel, a painter and illustrator who was the youngest member of the Victorian family firm of reproductive engravers known as Dalziel Brothers, Herbert Dalziel left school in 1874. He studied for a time at the West London School of Art, and his early work shows the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites. By 1882, however, he was studying under Alexandre Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he remained for about a year. He was elected a member of the New English Art Club in 1887, and also exhibited pastoral subjects and landscapes at the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery. Dalziel suffered from ill health and poor eyesight throughout much of his career, and as a result his output remains very small.
Provenance
The studio of the artist, and by descent to his daughter Ailsa
The Dalziel studio sale (‘The Dalziel Family, Engravers and Illustrators, from the Studio of Herbert Dalziel’), London, Sotheby’s Belgravia, 16 May 1978, part of lot 130
Martyn Gregory, London.
The Dalziel studio sale (‘The Dalziel Family, Engravers and Illustrators, from the Studio of Herbert Dalziel’), London, Sotheby’s Belgravia, 16 May 1978, part of lot 130
Martyn Gregory, London.
