Vanessa Bell

(British, 1879-1961)

Street in Asolo, Italy 66 x 52 cm. (26 x 20 1/2 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist's Estate
With Anthony d'Offay
With The Bloomsbury Workshop, London
Private Collection, U.K.

Vanessa Bell painted several Italian towns during visits in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the present lot can be accurately dated to Spring 1955 when Bell and Grant drove through France to Asolo in Italy, where they rented a house belonging to the Marchesa Fossi. The house, called 'La Mura', built partly into the ancient town walls, was solidly constructed and had a room with windows on three sides at the top of the building which lent itself perfectly to the purpose of studio. Soon after they arrived they were joined by Edward le Bas and Eardley Knollys, and from La Mura they made many trips during their stay, including to Villa Maser to see the Veronese frescoes, and to Venice where Bell admired in particular the Tintoretto paintings in the Scuola di San Rocco. Most importantly, the trip provided many subjects for the group to paint, with Bell remarking that: 'of course the light is so amazing, everything is colour and definite and exciting'. (Vanessa Bell, letter to Angelica Garnett, 3 May 1955, as quoted in Frances Spalding, Vanessa Bell, Portrait of the Bloomsbury Artist, 1983, reprinted 2016, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, London and New York, p.353.)

We are grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.