John Brett (1831-1902)
Provenance
By descent through the artist's family;
Sir T L Devitt;
Sotheby's, 3 Oct 1972, lot 151
Exhibitions
Fine Art Society, Sea Exhibition, 1881-82, possibly no. 51
Whitechapel Art Gallery, Spring Exhibition, 1902, no. 203
Literature
Addenda to Christiana Payne, John Brett: Pre-Raphaelite Landscape Painter, Yale University Press, 2010, no. 1512
Brett used this little sketch, most likely done in a single sitting of two or three hours, as a preparatory work for The Grey of the Morning, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882. It was probably one of the forty 7 x 14 inch ‘sketches from nature,’ which Brett sent to the Fine Art Society’s Sea Exhibition in 1881-82. The picture shows Bothwick Rocks in Newquay, with Trevose Head in the distance, and, according to Payne and Brett, was given by the artist, to his brother Arthur.