
Grace Berry
Associate Specialist
This auction has ended. View lot details



£1,200 - £1,800
Our Modern British & Irish Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Associate Specialist
Provenance
Sale; Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 28 October 2022, lot 103, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Anna Zinkeisen's Fête Champêtre at first appears to depict a light-hearted, neo-classical idyll, echoing 18th-century scenes of leisure. Yet beneath its surface elegance lies a striking complexity. The artist's earlier works often celebrated the glamour of high society, but after her wartime experiences, her palette and tone shifted. Here, the bright costumes and refined atmosphere are undercut by shadowed reflections in the water, lending a sense of unease. This tension between surface frivolity and underlying darkness reflects Zinkeisen's post-war perspective. Fête Champêtre ultimately reads as both an homage to past traditions and a subtle critique of Europe's fragile veneer of sophistication in the aftermath of devastation.
We are grateful to Dr Philip Kelleway for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.