Deutscher and Hackett

1. See among many Venetian paintings by the two artists: Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), A Regatta on the Grand Canal, 1740 (National Gallery, London) and The Grand Canal looking South from Ca’Foscari to the Carita, c.1726-27 (The Royal Trust Collection, UK); Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal, 1908 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). An excellent reference which profiles significant artists who have painted in Venice is E.V. Lucas, A Wanderer in Venice, 1914; the reference is of note because it is contemporaneous with Arthur Streeton’s time in Venice, being published around six years later.

2. Galbally, A., & Gray, A., (Eds), Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton 1890-1943, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p.112. I am greatly indebted to Galbally and Gray for this publication which makes Streeton’s letters so accessible. The painting’s stretcher size (to the extreme, including canvas overlapping the stretcher), measured by Deutscher and Hackett is 92 x 168.5 cm (36.2 x 66.3 in); this is commensurate with the 66 x 36 as Streeton describes in his letter. ‘The Grand Canal’ (1908) — Baillieu version — is also described as 66 x 36 inches in the newspaper, The Register, reporting the sale of the painting (see note 11).

3. Galbally & Gray, op. cit, pp.114-15. See also Schmidt, S, ‘Arthur Streeton’s “The Grand Canal” 1908’, 2019 < https://academia.edu> re n.2 & 4; Francesco Foscari (1373–1457) was Doge of Venice, 1423—1457 (see E.V. Lucas, 1914, op. cit, p.95). Lucas discusses the beauty of the palace and its ‘golden borders to the windows’, p.135.

4. This view departs from those who assert it is the second, but facts surrounding the painting lead, I think, to a logical conclusion of this present painting as prima. Author of ‘Arthur Streeton’s Venice’, pp.213-232 in Streeton, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2020, Roger Benjamin, says ‘… the second large Grand Canal was purchased by Arthur Sydney Baillieu in 1914…’ — see p 218. I believe this claim is incorrect. The claim, as it is put, can also imply this assertion is drawn from my own research. I have shown many features of Streeton’s Venetian work, as published in 2019, but never asserted this painting as being the second work. A firm view on the order of these paintings has not been established or given by myself, until this present paper for Deutscher and Hackett; I am stating advances in what is ongoing research.

Benjamin describes the ‘Mond version’ as having sold for £250 to Ludwig and Robert, citing as his source, the letter to Frederick Delmer of 23 September 1909 which describes a recent sale. The letter states, ‘I showed in Paris this year won a 3rd class gold medal… and I’ve sold at good price 250 pounds a “Grand Canal Venice”, recently.’ See discussion in Galbally, & Gray, A, op. cit, p.117; and Schmidt, S, op. cit, 2019. It is only slightly overreaching perhaps, to assume this is the Mond painting sale, given at Streeton’s solo exhibition at The Alpine Club, March 26-April 9, 1909, the highest sale among 46 works sold, was approximately £105 (100 Guineas). This sizeable Grand Canal painting is clearly in the vicinity of the stated price, at a time when Streeton was heavily invested in his Venetian series. With the Baillieu purchase not until 1914, there is a high likelihood that the Mond Grand Canal Venice painting is the sale to which Delmer refers in the letter; the price, title and scale all point towards this. We know from the Mond picture’s reproduction in The Studio, vol.47, London, September 15, 1909, that it was acquired by this date (around five years earlier than Baillieu acquired his work). Regardless of sale dates, both paintings were made in 1908. The sequence of the pictures is not ideally constructed from sale dates, but instead from the artist’s own documentation of sequence (in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit.).

The Mond picture was exhibited 22 May, 1909, at the New English Art Club summer exhibition at The Galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists, London, May 22, 1909 (there were two New English exhibition seasons in 1909: May and November); the painting was sold sometime between May and September 1909.

Details given by the artist of the sale of Venetian paintings ‘to rich friends’ by August 1908 (in a letter to Tom Roberts), could counter argument that the Baillieu work was painted on the second trip to Venice, however this would depend on grand assumptions around scale and price; Streeton’s Venetian output was prolific so this letter is no basis for presumption either.

In Streeton’s letter to Roberts (7 August 1908) he says, ‘I’ve sold a few of the Venetians to some rich friends and we’ve been staying at their houses in the country’ — Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114. Note there are at least three letters surrounding relevant Venetian sales: this August 1908 letter to Roberts, a letter on 1 July 1909, where Streeton speaks of a garden party showing Venetian pictures, and the letter to Delmer of 23 September 1909 (£250 sale). Per The Arthur Streeton Catalogue (1935), there are only two large scale Grand Canal paintings such as would command this price, although, there is a 1908 Venetian oil in Streeton’s catalogue which is missing dimensions: #381 ‘Venetian Canal’, owner General H Grimwade; also, Streeton did continue to paint —though not so prolifically— beyond the publication date of his 1935 catalogue, for example ‘Melbas Country’ (1936).

5. The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit; see also Schmidt, S., 2019, op. cit, for analysis of the number of Venetian works in the Streeton catalogue, in the context of purchasers.

6. See https://yso.org.uk/history/biographies/nora-clench-1867-1938

7. Streeton’s letter to Walter Withers (25 May 1909) says: ‘My pictures [of?] Venice are on their way to the Guildhall & I’m fortunate in being in ‘Venice International’ most exclusive RA [Royal Academy], New English, RBA & Both Salons.’ — Galbally & Gray, op. cit, 116; I note also, relevant 21st Century Australian exhibitions on Venice: in 2003, La Serenissima: The Fascination of Venice, National Trust S.H.Ervin Gallery, curator Lou Klepac; and in 2005, Peter Perry, Venezia Australis: Australian artists in Venice 1900-2000, Castlemaine Art Gallery.

8. I note, Robert Mond died in Paris in late 1938 and his widow, Lady Marie- Louise Mond, lived in France from the time of Mond’s death. Robert Mond bequeathed his art collection as follows: Lady Marie-Louise (his second wife) (four-sixths of his art collection), his eldest daughter, Frieda Brackley (one-sixth), and the children of his youngest daughter Irene Dunn (one- sixth). In the will of Lady Marie-Louise Mond, property already in France is divided among her French relatives, and property in England was divided amongst Robert Mond’s grandchildren in England. Lady Marie-Louise Mond was imprisoned by German Forces at the start of the German Occupation of France. The Germans requisitioned two castles owned by Lady Mond during World War Two.

9. Part of this assertion comes from it being the only Grand Canal picture at this scale that has two verified references regarding its true measurements — see notes 2 & 7.

10. Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.112.; Schmidt, S., 2019, op. cit.

11. The 36 x 66 inch measurement is stated in the letter from Arthur Streeton to Baldwin Spencer, 8 October 1908, and again in 1914 when the present picture was purchased by Baillieu. See Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114, and ‘Concerning People’ The Register, Adelaide, 13 April 1914.

12. According to the 1935 catalogue, there was only ever one 66 x 36 inch Grand Canal painting made by Streeton.

13. Robert Mond is credited in most publications as owner, Ludwig Mond on other occasions (see note14). In the 1935 Streeton catalogue, the Mond and Baillieu entries are separated by eighteen paintings. It is tempting to suggest that one painting was produced on the April-May trip, 1908, and another in September-October, but it may be the latter trip alone, when a work was painted en plein air. It is an October 1908 letter in which Streeton mentions one such painting (this present painting per catalogue sequence), and artist Clara Mustalba gaining him access to the Palazzo before further work being completed on return to the studio. See Galbally & Gray, op. cit, p.114 & Schmidt, S, 2019, op. cit; Mary Eagle has observed that many of Streeton’s Venetian paintings carried the special conviction of plein air works (Eagle, M., The Oil Paintings of Arthur Streeton in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, 1994, p.147).

14. The Mond family, beginning with Robert’s father Ludwig (1839-1909), were major patrons of Streeton, a relationship acknowledged by the naming of the artist’s son, Charles Ludwig Oliver Streeton (1911-77). Ludwig Mond died

11 December 1909, in the same year as the purchase of The Grand Canal. In 1913 Streeton received a Mond commission for 15 paintings; several of these paintings have reached Australia, including The Orchard Garden of the Sir Robert Mond Home at Combe Bank Estate; The Cedars, Combe Park (1913); Lake, Combe Bank (1913), Interior, Combe Bank, Sevenoaks (1913). The Mond Grand Canal, is variously documented as the property of Ludwig Mond (such as in The Craftsman 1909), or of Robert Mond (1867-1938) (such as in The Studio, 1909, or the register of works in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Melbourne, 1935); the picture may have passed to Robert Mond after Ludwig’s death. By 1909, Robert was already a collector in his own right however, and a close friend of Streeton. Ludwig’s collection passed, at his death, to his wife, Frida Mond (nee Lowenthal) until her death in 1923 [Constable, W.G., ‘The Mond Bequest to The National Gallery’, Apollo: A Journal of the Arts, vol. 7 (39), March 1928, p.98; see also Wardleworth, D., ‘The “Friendly” Battle for the Mond Bequest,’ The British Art Journal, vol. 4, no. 3, 2003, pp. 87-93. Parts of the Mond collections were gifted to the National Gallery, London (as its most significant gift to date), the British Museum, and to the universities of Toronto, Liverpool and Manchester (Bonhams Old Master Paintings, 30 April 2014, p.175). A search of these collections has not provided any record of Sir Robert Mond’s The Grand Canal (1908). Extensive review of international auction records, has not unearthed the Mond work either, but database records for the relevant period are not as complete as those today. Research was also conducted by the writer in 2019, looking for the painting in collections related to Mond bequests, and via the University Ca‘ Foscari Venezia located in Palazzo Foscari and the Bibliotheca Hertziana — Max Planck Institute for Art History.

This ongoing research into the location of the Mond painting considers how the Mond family engaged in philanthropic and collecting practices across several countries, including from a base in Rome, and employed German Professor of art history Jean Paul Richter as an adviser. No Streeton paintings are recorded in Richter’s 1910 catalogue, The Mond Collection:An Appreciation. This publication pertains to the collection of Ludwig Mond, rather than Robert Mond, and is devoted to major European masterpieces so is not likely a full catalogue of artworks owned, but rather, a showcase for collection highlights. The Will of Frieda Brackley (nee Mond) is extremely detailed with regard to artwork and does not include mention of TheGrand Canal, and nor do the wills of the other family members mention the painting (see note 8); a large portion of Ludwig’s collection had already been bequeathed conditionally to the National Gallery, London, in 1909, to transfer to the Gallery upon the death of Frieda (42 paintings were given). See also Saumarez Smith, C., Ludwig Mond’s Bequest. A Gift to the Nation, National Gallery, London, 2006, and The Mond Bequest at King’s College London: A Celebration; Adam, T., Transnational Philanthropy: The Mond Family’s Support for Public Institutions in Western Europe from 1890 to 1938, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

15. It recalls to the writer, the words of Lucas: ‘To me the Grand Canal is the river of Venice—its Thames, its Seine, its Arno’, says E.V. Lucas, op. cit, p.114.

16. Collection, Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide.

17. There are subtle differences between reproductions of this scene published in 1909 and 1919, which are possibly the same (Mond) painting: The Studio, London, 1909; The Craftsman, 1909; and The Art of Arthur Streeton, 1919.

The ‘Mond Streeton’ has more prominent structures, and a close-up view of a building in the left foreground. That Streeton chooses to retain the building close-up, also helps suggest that the Baillieu picture was painted first, before Mond’s, the artist later adding the symmetrical framing device of the magnified building. Other subtle variations in the number and placement of gondolas — especially the proud sail on a vessel at the centre of the Baillieu picture — and shadows across the water, differentiate the pictures, but they are substantially the same scene. To my eye, the present work is more spacious and pleasing than the Mond version, being without the heavy foreground building, which the artist appears to have experimented with for symmetry.

18. The work was included in exhibitions curated by the writer in 2016 and 2018, as then Director, Hamilton Gallery: 20th Century Australian Painting, August 2016; then, A Western District Provenance - major works from private collections of the Western District of Victoria, united for the first time, November 2018.

19. I refer to an AGNSW request in November 2019 for permission to forward my research (as provided to Wayne Tunnicliffe in October 2019) to Roger Benjamin, towards his essay for the Streeton exhibition publication.

20. Known principally through the artist’s catalogue, being Streeton’s own (published) record of his artworks produced 1883 to 1934, The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, 1935, op. cit; In 2016, Streeton’s And the Sunlight Clasps the Earth, (1895) was rediscovered in a private collection in Tasmania after around 120 years out of circulation. In 2014 the artist’s Ariadne, (1895) emerged from a private collection in Sydney after 70 years when the work was sold. There was also the reappearance in 2016 of etching plates by Streeton, subsequently printed by Theo and Soula Mantalvanos at Queenscliff Gallery and Workshop: see Legge, K., ‘Into the light: The lost etchings of Arthur Streeton,’ The Australian, 26 November 2016.

21. See Schmidt, S., ‘The Grand Canal, 1908, by Arthur Streeton’, attribution paper, (updated) August 2019 for notes recorded from the original labels.

22. Lindsay, L., ‘Streeton’s Loan Exhibition’, pp.19 -20, in The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, op. cit, p.20; Lindsay served as AGNSW Trustee 1918-1929 and 1934-1949; the ‘Centre of Empire’ reference will refer to Streeton’s painting The Centre of the Empire, (1902); similar glowing reviews were made of the Mond version: ‘...it is technically full of ability and has an unusual breadth of atmospheric effect.’ — newspaper article, 26 May 1909, obtained from The General Press Cutting Association.

23. Held at Melbourne’s Victorian Artists Society’s Gallery.

24. Galbally & Gray, op. cit., p.133, painting title and catalogue no. 346 provided: Streeton writes to Nora, ‘The opening day was a success… The Baillieu brothers (William and Arthur) and their wives are buying well, even the children snapping up Water-colours’.

25. Schmidt, S., attribution paper, 2019, op. cit.

26. See for example Australian and New Zealand Art Sales Digest.

27. Melba apparently ‘yoo-hooing at the top of her substantial voice… Nora would recall their arrival with horror. She thought Melba most vulgar.’ Victoria Button cited in ‘York Symphony Orchestra profile of Nora Clench’: https://yso.org.uk/ history/biographies/nora-clench-1867-1938

28. The Herald, Melbourne, 22 March 1924, p.11; it was at this exhibition that Mrs McKenzie of Trawalla paid 1000 guineas for Golden Summer, Eaglemont, 1888.

29. The Sun, Sydney, Sunday 8 June, 1941, p.22; Melba, singing across Europe, in Venice, ‘gave an unannounced concert… word having gone around that she was going to sing, a few gondolas began to cluster round a lighted barge… Half an hour later there was a stir, and the prima donna, stepping into a gondola, crossed the Grand Canal… she sang across the moon-flooded waters of the Grand Canal.’ — ‘Melba Sings in Venice’, Argus, Sat 24 October, 1925, p.8.

30. Davidson, J., ‘Dame Nellie Melba’, Dictionary of Biography, volume 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986.

31. Ibid.

32. ‘Madame Melba: The World’s Greatest Singer’, Daily Telegraph, 8 June, 1915, p.2.

33. The Windsor Damsel, Fishing, 1903; Strood Hill, 1904 and Venice, n.d., are other works known to be owned by Melba.

34. See National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection, ‘Letters of Sir Arthur Streeton’, 1915-1943, MS 9828; Letter from Nellie Melba to Arthur Streeton, 1915, from Coombe Cottage and re-addressed to Streeton from 10 Hill Road, Abbey Road, London, to 3rd London General Hospital Wandsworth, London, S.W. (the artist had volunteered to serve at the hospital as part of the Royal Army Medical Corps).

35. Melba describes further: ‘If you take the long white road from Melbourne out towards the great Australian Bush, leaving behind you the little wooden-built townships of Lilydale and Coldstream, you will eventually arrive at what seems to be the fringe of civilisation... At this turning of the roads I have built my Australian home, Coombe Cottage, almost within sight and sound of the same trees and vineyards in which I played as a child…’ Melba, Dame Nellie, ‘Early Days in Australia,’ in Melodies and Memories:1861-1931, 1980, p.9.

36. The Streetons were first houseguests of Mond in 1912, on 14 and 15 December; Melba rented Coombe House, Devey Close, Coombe, Kingston Upon Thames in 1906.

37. ‘Mr Arthur Streeton’s Pictures’, Punch, Thursday 24 December, 1914, p.35; review re an exhibition at The Athenaeum, Melbourne, 10-17 December, 1914.

38. Ibid.

39. Gray, A.,The Art of War, National Gallery of Australia, 2017

40. Ure Smith, S., Stevens, B., Lloyd Jones, C., (Eds.), The Art of Arthur Streeton, Angus and Robertson, 1919

41. Some of Mond’s collection was stored with that of the National Gallery, London, during wartime; one resource shows over ten Venetian ‘Grand Canal’ artworks, by artists from Paul Signac to Camille Corot, and a possible Canaletto, that were removed in wartime; the Mond painting is not among these. This is a specific body of work located in one French facility where Nazi agencies deposited the artwork that was seized — see Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume.

42. Communication between the author and Mond descendant, January and February, 2021.

43. R. H. Croll (ed.), Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1946, pp.
90–1.

44. Baillieu bequeathed the painting to son Everard as option for purchase or representing his share. The picture transferred to Arthur Baillieu’s sister, Amy Adelaide Shackell, who together with her son-in-law William John Trevor Clarke, gave the picture to her daughter Sandra Elizabeth Baillieu-Shackell (Arthur Baillieu’s niece) who married Clarke. Sandra owned multiple Venetian Streetons, loaning three, though not the present work, to an Adelaide Festival of Arts Exhibition in 1968 (see note from Papers of Streeton Family, MS 114, National Gallery of Australia). The couple later gave this painting to their son and his wife.

45. Established using original sources including the will of Arthur Baillieu, family oral histories, Streeton’s letters and exhibition catalogues, newspaper reports of the day, and original manuscripts, plus Streeton’s published letters.

46. The residence also housed, by Streeton, a Venetian watercolour and two further oil paintings: one of Queenscliffe (1907) and the other a panel showing Sydney Harbour. Source - Will of Arthur Baillieu. A letter, 5 October 1907, to Tom Roberts describes: ‘I’m here having an excellent time free of charge, and everything I like, Schnapper fishing thrown in, and doing a commission of Queenscliff for Baillieu – 30 x 20…’ Croll, op. cit., p.91

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