Roses in Ginger Jar 1932

ARTHUR STREETON (1867-1943)

Roses in Ginger Jar 1932

oil on canvas
60.5 x 50.5 cm; 78.0 x 68.0 cm (framed)
signed lower right: A. STREETON
inscribed verso: "Roses IN GiNger JAR."
signed and inscribed on frame verso: ROSES IN A GINGER JAR/ [illeg.] Arthur Streeton

Provenance:
Dr Victor Hurley, Melbourne
Tom Silver Gallery, Melbourne, 1983
Private collection, Melbourne

Exhibited:
Exhibition of Roses by Arthur Streeton, Fine Art Society's Gallery, Melbourne, 1-14 December 1932, cat.7

Reference:
Streeton, A., The Arthur Streeton Catalogue, Arthur Streeton, Melbourne, 1935, p.140, cat.1051 (as Roses, in Ginger Jar)

Estimate: $40000 - 60000

Result Hammer: $55000

The still-life was a secondary subject for Arthur Streeton, whose fame rested on landscapes. Nonetheless, Streeton’s first recorded painting, listed in his own 1935 Catalogue of his life’s work to date, is Still-Life Tobacco Jar and Billy of 1883. It was not until his later years, having returned from England, that he took more interest in painting subjects closer to hand: local views, of his immediate surroundings and to paint subjects such as still-life. The landscape around the Dandenongs, not far from Melbourne, offered a subject that was familiar and personal as well as becoming a focus for Streeton’s growing concern about the exploitation and despoliation of the landscape, most poignantly illustrated in his famous The Last of the Messmates, painted in 1928. In this respect Streeton has earned a reputation as an early ‘greenie’ in view of his efforts to curtail extensive logging in the Dandenongs close to his home. Streeton loved the Australian landscape. The subject was the source of his standing and eminence in Australia.  It seems a natural progression that with age, he would focus on his own part of it. In these later years he became a passionate gardener, and flowers and trees joined the landscape as prime subjects.

In 1889 The 9 x 5 Impression Exhibition included flower pieces and still-lifes of fruit; however Streeton spent the following years in England and travelled extensively as his paintings were exhibited and found collectors worldwide. His main audience remained in Australia, and following the conclusion of his military service as Official War Artist he and his young family made plans to return home. In February 1920 they arrived in Melbourne.

Wealthy patrons acquired his paintings from annual exhibitions held in Melbourne and Sydney. His magnum opus, Golden Summer, Eaglemont, painted in 1889, had originally been sold to the English Collector Charles Mitchell in 1892, was bought back by Streeton and then resold in 1924 for the astonishing amount of 1000 guineas. The sale had the effect of confirming Streeton’s pre-eminence in Australian art, while providing the funds for the purchase of the land at Olinda. The construction of the house ‘Longacres’, and growing interest in his garden there coincided with a reduction in overseas travel.  From 1926 Longacres became his summer residence. His catalogue for that year lists numerous views of the surrounding forested hills and flower pieces including several compositions of roses. Streeton returned to the subject repeatedly in the ensuing years, with five examples dateable to 1929, including one example acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria,(1) and another by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.(2)

Whether or not these major public gallery purchases were the impetus, flowers - and in particular, roses - continued to take up Streeton’s interest and in 1932, the present work Roses in Ginger Jar was included in the Exhibition of Roses by Arthur Streeton at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery in Melbourne, where it is listed as catalogue no. 7. Streeton’s catalogue lists no less than seven paintings of the subject in 1932, with a further four executed in 1933.

Streeton’s remaining years were spent living in Melbourne and increasingly at Olinda. Annual exhibitions of new paintings were held in Melbourne and Sydney, crowned with the 1931 Loan Exhibition of Works by Arthur Streeton held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1929 Streeton was appointed art critic for the Argus, and in 1937 he was knighted for his services to art. Streeton died at Olinda in 1943.

Footnotes

1. Roses c1929, oil on canvas, 61.7 x 51.0 cm, National Gallery of Victoria collection, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1930, accession no.4298-3
2. Roses c1929, oil on canvas, 61.3 x 51.0 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, Sydney, purchased 1930, accession no.83

Timothy Abdallah

Tim Abdallah is a fine art consultant with more than thirty-five years of experience working in auction houses, public museums and commercial art galleries in Australia, the UK, Germany and Italy.  He joined Lawsons Auctioneers in 2002 as Head of Art and until 2017 was Head of Art at Menzies.

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