Sir William Nicholson

Silver

1938

On loan

Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK): The Beggarstaffs: James Pryde and William Nicholson

Artist: Sir William Nicholson 1872–1949
Medium: Oil paint on wood
Dimensions: Support: 438 x 571 mm
frame: 610 x 740 x 95 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1938
Reference: N04936

Display caption

Many of Nicholson's still lifes show his love of lustrous surfaces. In them be explores how varied textures reflect light in different ways. Here this is seen admirably in the contrast between the finer silver of the salver in comparison to that of the teapot and hot water pot.
This is one of several paintings that Nicholson made for E.V.Lucas, the essayist and assistant editor of Punch, who died in 1938.

Gallery label, September 2004

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Catalogue entry

N04936 SILVER 1938

Inscr. ‘N.’ b.l.
Oil on panel, 17 1/4×22 1/2 (43·5×57).
Purchased from Miss Marguerite Steen through the Matthiesen Gallery (Clarke Fund) 1938.
Coll: E. V. Lucas, bequeathed to Miss Marguerite Steen 1938.
Exh: Still Life and Flower Paintings of the Old and Modern Masters, Matthiesen Gallery, June–July 1938 (71), as ‘Silver on a white cloth’.
Lit: Browse, 1956, pp.26 and 112, repr. pl.46.
Repr: Sir John Rothenstein, British Art since 1900, 1962, pl.12.

Painted for the writer E. V. Lucas in 1938 (letter from Miss Marguerite Steen, 22 July 1958) and exhibited at Matthiesen's as of that year. An oil painting of ‘Silver Teapots’, similar to the left-hand half of No.4936 and measuring 13×16 1/2 in., was sold at Christie's, 13 July 1964 (371), bt. Bravington.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II