Michael Ayrton

(British, 1921-1975)

Morning, Ischia

Footnotes

Provenance
Sir William Walton, by whom gifted to the family of the present owner, circa the 1950s, and thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

The Ischia landscape was painted during the summer of 1947, which Ayrton spent travelling in Italy, discovering first hand the fresco painting of the Early Renaissance, and falling under the spell of Piero della Francesca and Masaccio. He initially came to the Bay of Naples as a guest of Norman Douglas on Capri, in company with William Walton. Ayrton and Walton had worked together on John Gielgud's wartime production of Macbeth, and remained friends for many years thereafter; it was probably Walton who introduced Ayrton to Ischia, his own particular favourite among the islands, and in those days a much less obvious destination for outsiders than Capri itself. Ayrton painted a series of evocative images of the shore and the fishermen, culminating in the large canvas, Afternoon on Ischia, now in the British Council Collection; he also worked on the portrait of Walton against a background of the Bay of Naples, now in the National Portrait Gallery.

The inspiration of Piero and Masaccio, with their 'monumental images, timeless, impersonal and yet human ... filled with secret communication and unspecified drama' is evident here, where the subdued palette and dry, brushy handling of the paint gives the painting something of the feel of a fresco, as well as capturing the quality of the early light. As he always did, Ayrton became fascinated by the activities and lives of the people he found himself among - this picture has the subtitle Mending Nets II, and the work of the two foreground figures is both characteristically accurate, with the net-frame and weights, and lovingly rendered.

We are grateful to Dr Justine Hopkins and the Ayrton Estate for their assistance in cataloguing this lot and for compiling this catalogue entry.