With the artist’s studio stamp (under mount)

Charcoal, 25.5 by 35.5 cm (10 ½ by 14 ins)

Provenance: the Fine Art Society, London; acquired by the previous owner from the Court Gallery, Somerset

The present work relates to painting and watercolour study of the same subject, the latter of which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, USA (see fig.1 below). 

Bevan’s summer months in the last couple of decades of his life were dominated by his visits to the Blackdown Hills on the Somerset/Devon border. First taking a house in the Bolham Valley he eventually acquired Marlpitts Cottage in Luppitt. In the summer of 1920, he took lodgings at Gould’s Farm in Luppitt and a fine group of paintings as well as some of the artist’s best landscape lithographs were produced here (amongst them The Smithy, Luppitt and The White House). The same remarkable monochromatic tonal range of the lithographs is apparent in this fine drawing, which accentuates the contrasts between the jagged leaves within the strong outlines of the trees and the hedgerows and horizons beyond. Such works hark back to the enduring influence of the Post Impressionists on Bevan’s art, particularly in this case that of Vincent Van Gogh. Rosemary Lane, also the subject of a later lithograph Rosemary, Devon from 1922, is situated a few miles north of Luppitt.

We are very grateful to Patrick Baty for his assistance.

Fig 1. Robert Bevan (1865-1925), Rosemary Lane, Clayhidon, c.1915 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA)