Arthur Melville ARSA RSW ARS (British, 1855-1904)


The Salute. The Yellow Sail. titled to label fragment (verso)watercolour 85 x 59 cm. (33 7/16 x 23 1/4 in.)Together with additional sheet of annotated pencil studies of Venice (2)
|Provenance(Probably) Mrs Arthur Melville, 1907.The artist's estate sale, Dowell's, Edinburgh, March 1922, lot 126(Probably) where purchased by Dr A HH Sinclair, EdinburghThence by descentExhibitedLondon, Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, 1906Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, 1906, Memorial Exhibition, cat.no.19Glasgow, RGI, 1907, cat.no.9Nottingham, Castle Museum, Memorial Exhibition, 1907, cat.no.67LiteratureThe Studio, 1906. IllustratedAE Mackay, Arthur Melville, Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, pps.101, 143 (plate 39)Melville visited Venice for the first time in the summer of 1894. Although his response to the city's iconic vistas is understandably less 'spontaneous' than witnessed on his other sketching trips, he produced several fine, considered exhibition pieces. He favoured the bragozzi, Venetian fishing vessels, as pictorial devices framed against the familiar landmarks.