Henry Herbert la Thangue (BRITISH 1859-1929), A SPANISH MILL

Lot description

HENRY HERBERT LA THANGUE (BRITISH 1859-1929)A SPANISH MILLOil on canvasSigned (lower left); further signed and inscribed 'A Spanish Mill' (on the stretcher)96.5 x 110cm (37 x 43¼ in.)Provenance:Sale, Christie's, London, Victorian & British Impressionist Art, 13 December 2012, lot 54The Collection of The Bowerman Charitable TrustHenry La Thangue was a founder member of the New English Art Club and like many of his fellow artists spent time painting in mainland Europe. He is most associated with Provence and the Liguria coast of Italy. He also sailed down the coast of Spain a far as Andalusia and the Balearic Islands. He worked almost exclusively on the spot, and it is likely that he blocked in the present composition by the roadside in the Mallorcan hills, close to the village of Buger, where the fast-flowing Torrent de Buger irrigated the cereal crops produced in the area, giving rise to the construction of windmills hundreds of years earlier. At least one other work, the smaller Moonrise in Spain (Christie's, 16 December 2009), is known to have been completed at this location. The figure with the heavily laden donkey is a miller setting off for the coast or the local bake-house. Observers noted that the meagre wealth of small island population depended on corn production that fed the expansion of Barcelona, even later in the twenties when the islands were colonized by artists such as Robert Graves, the native Spanish reliant on an agrarian existence.