
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
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£40,000 - £60,000
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Head of UK and Ireland

Head of Department

Director
Provenance
With Marlborough Fine Art, London & New York
The Artist
Thence by family descent
Exhibited
Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, John Piper and English Neo-Romanticism, 1982-3, cat.no.65
In contrast to the purely abstract pictures of the 1930s, John Piper's focus switched to the recording of important and historical architectural sites from the 1940s onwards. Frequently travelling to obscure locations at home and abroad, he intended on finding buildings of extraordinary character and representing them with his own unique technique. Piper had a particular affinity with France and in the present work depicts one of the country's most important landmarks, Notre-Dame de Reims, where the kings of France were crowned. Architecturally arresting, the three portals are laden with statues and statuettes with the central portal, as visible in the present work, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Dating to 1969-70, Piper's application is impressionistic in style and recounts the famous Rouen Cathedral series painted in the 1890s by the celebrated French impressionist Claude Monet.