Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are offering for sale this detailed watercolour by the Cornish artist Percival Horace Hart, who was the son of the patriarch of the Hart Family of Painters, Thomas Hart FSA. Percival Hart, who is also known as Horace Percival, has signed the painting Percival Hart in the lower right hand corner, as shown. The painting depicts a view of St. Michael's Mount in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, from a point almost opposite the island's harbour. The island can be visited by crossing a granite causway at low to mid tide. It is a civil parish attached to Marazion and has 35 inhabitants currently.

Percival Hart was born in the 4th quarter of 1864, the second son of Thomas Hart, who presumably oversaw his son's art education. There is a very good site at Kerrier.org, which gives the history of the entire Hart Family of Artists.

In the censuses of 1871 and 1881, Percival was living at Polbrean, Landwednack, The Lizard, Cornwall, the impressive family home, where his father had his studio. It remained in the family hands until Claude Montague Hart, Percival's brother, put it up for auction in 1921. It is currently owned by the National Trust and is run as a youth hostel.

On 25th August, 1890 he married Isabella Preston and, in 1891 they had a son. In the census of that year, he and Isabella were visiting friends, but, according to The Dictionary of British Artists (Collectors' Club) where Percival is listed, he submitted a work to the Dudley Gallery from an address at 5, Crindan Road, Newport Monmouthshire, where, as well as painting, he had taken up teaching art. There is one of his watercolours in Newport Art Gallery.

Thomas Hart had a studio in Odda, Norway and made regular trips there from 1874 to paint. His studio was subsequently taken over by Percival's brother Sydney Hart. Presumably Percival also visited Norway to paint, as he had an exhbition of around 50 watercolours of Norway in major cities in the country in the earlty 1890s, which was mentioned in several newspaper cuttings of the time, including Manchester and Birmingham.

Sadly, on the 18th January, 1896 at Polbrean, the family home and in the company of his brother Sydney, Percival died at the age of 31.

The record price for one of his watercolours is £3,000 at David Lay auctioneers in 2011, for a 15" x 8" of a grounded collier being unloaded on a beach.

The watercolour is mounted with washlines and is very nicely framed in a 1 3/4" gilt frame with shells in the corners. It will be supplied wired and ready to hang.

Image size: 25 1/8" x 7 5/8"

Frame size: 34 1/8" x 17" - 86.65cm x 43.2cm

Medium: Watercolours

Condition: Very good condition. There is no foxing or fading. The mount and frame are in very good condition.