Details
WILLIAM RATCLIFFE (BRITISH, 1870-1955)
Swedish farm
pencil, pen and brown ink, pastel and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour on paper, lightly squared
12 x 15 in. (30.2 x 38.1 cm.)
Provenance
The artist, by whom given to
Stanley Parker, and by descent to the present owner.
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.
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Lot Essay

The present drawing depicts a quintessential scene of a Swedish farm, featuring a woman and child going about their daily tasks. Inspired by his great friend, and Camden Town Group founder, Harold Gilman’s (1876-1919) visit to Sweden in 1912, Ratcliffe began his own exploration of the Scandinavian region in 1913. Ratcliffe was heavily influenced by the Swedish landscape and F. Farmar concludes that ‘Swedish pictures represent the peak of [Ratcliffe’s] powers as a painter. They have a confidence of design and strength of colour and pattern which is lacking in his later work’ (F. Farmar, The Painters of Camden Town, London, 1988, p.159).
The frame of this drawing was designed and made by Stanley Parker, a woodworker who was assistant to Charles Voysey, and who Ratcliffe lived with in Letchworth in around 1906, where he also met Gilman.

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