Vanessa Bell (1879-1961)

The unusually horizontal format of this still life suggests that it may have begun life as a panel decoration. A work by Bell with the same title was exhibited in The New Movement in Art held in 1917 at the Mansard Gallery, Heal's, in London. If this is the same painting, it was obviously re-worked and dated 1919. The objects of the still life - the white cups and saucers, edged in red, and the painted tray were Charlestonian (for the cup and saucer and a similar tray, see Duncan Grant's Charleston still life (here lot 65). The fusion of a possible decorative project with a careful solidity of handling mark this transitional phase in Bell's post-war work.

Soon after completion, the painting seems to have gone to Clive Bell's flat in Gordon Square. It is listed as his property in Vanessa Bell's 1950 inventory of pictures at Charleston. It hung for many years above a large mirror in Duncan Grant's bedroom (where a copy of the painting now hangs).

R.S.