In a letter to the Tate Gallery written in 1954, Walter Bayes explained that
Under the Candles: Mr Charles Ginner Presiding was a study for an oil painting exhibited at the Royal Academy.
1 He added that his painting had been ‘dreadfully skied’ during display, meaning that it had been hung so high that it was virtually impossible to see it. Since the study is dated 1933 and Bayes did not exhibit at the Academy between 1931 and 1935, Mary Chamot, an Assistant Keeper at the Tate Gallery, reasoned that the picture must have been the work entitled
La Vie Galante – ‘On Sonne’ (The Gentlemanly Life – ‘Someone Rings the Bell’),
2 exhibited at the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1936.
3 The appearance and whereabouts of this painting are currently unknown but the title does not seem to bear much relation to the appearance and subject of
Under the Candles. However, as the art historian Wendy Baron has pointed out, Bayes did have a tendency to give his works obscure titles with cryptic meanings.
4 It is possible that the French title has a colloquial meaning which has been lost owing to translation or the passage of time.