Whyte's
Lot 47
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) FIGURES IN THE WOODS, c.1903pencil and charcoal with ink on papersigned lower left; also inscribed in the artist`s hand, Paul Henry White Cottage Knaphill Surrey` on the reverseP15.75 by 11in., 39.375 by 27.5cm.Adam`s, 7 April 1993, lot 106;Private collectionKennedy, S.B., Paul Henry, Paintings Drawings Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2007, catalogue no. 259, p.144 (listed)Dated c.1903 on the evidence of the signature, its scroll-like surround and the architectural structure at the base of the drawing. It resembles another Henry piece, The wedding was the greatest affair that was ever seen in France, 1902-3 (Kennedy, 2007, catalogue no. 6) The latter, and Figures in the Woods, were almost certainly part of a number of drawings made to illustrate an unknown narrative. As Henry moved into White Cottage, Knaphill, in 1903 this drawing cannot date before that year.The strongest Whistlerian nature of the drawing is typical of Paul Henry`s illustrative work done in the years before he first went to Achill. Charcoal was almost his sole medium in those years. `No chalk or crayon has the same soft, velvety quality, no other material is so sensitive and tractable,` he later wrote. `I felt every time I used it, that the vine branches from which it was made brought me nearer to the spirit of France in some almost mystical way.` In An Irish Portrait **INSERT FOOTNOTE**1. he stated that his love of charcoal dated from a chance encounter with a charcoal burner at Rambouillet in 1900, but in fact he was using it long before that meeting, which may merely have confirmed its qualities to him. Indeed, it is more likely that it was a group of drawings by Millet, done in charcoal and sanguine and executed with spontaneity, as Millet`s finished pictures were not, which started him using the medium.Dr S.B. KennedyFootnote:1. Paul Henry, An Irish Portrait, Batsford, London, 1951, p.29See An Irish Portrait, p.24
