SIR WILLIAM NICHOLSON (1872-1949)

The Fountains, Palais Royal belongs to a very productive period, cut short by the onset of the First World War, which Nicholson spent in Paris, staying with his friend and patron, the American playwright Edward Knoblock (1874-1945).

'This painting is closely related to Nicholson’s decorative scheme for Knoblock’s apartment in the Palais Royal, which overlooked this garden quadrangle. In his autobiography, Round the Room, Knoblock evokes the garden’s charm, which also delighted Nicholson, who was staying with him. Filled by day with children, nursemaids and occasionally a military band, ‘at noon… a little gun went off, fired by a lens setting light to a fuse’ and at dusk it was ceremoniously closed by six soldiers of the municipal guard. Nicholson is clearly interested in capturing the effect of light on falling water. A more architectural fountain appears in Loggia with Figures, which decorated the wall of Knoblock’s dining room and where Nicholson included a self portrait sketching in a pose similar to that of the figure seen here leaning against a tree. The arcaded elevation onto the garden appears as the canvas backdrop to Studio Still-life’, 1914 (Tate), the large work that Nicholson painted for Knoblock (P. Reed, William Nicholson: Catalogue Raisonnée of the Oil Paintings, London, 2011, p. 253).

We are very grateful to Patricia Reed for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.