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William John Hennessy GATHERING APPLES, NORMANDY
Lot 30
Price Realised: €12,000
Estimate: €14,000 - €18,000
William John Hennessy, 1839-1917 GATHERING APPLES, NORMANDY Oil on canvas, 71" x 40" (180.3 x 101.6cm), signed and dated 1884 Exhibited: Autumn Exhibition, Manchester, 1884, number 361; Milmo-Penny Fine Art, December 2006, catalogue ent... Read more
Lot 30 - GATHERING APPLES, NORMANDY by William John Hennessy Lot 30 William John Hennessy GATHERING APPLES, NORMANDY
Estimate: €14,000 - €18,000
William John Hennessy, 1839-1917
GATHERING APPLES, NORMANDY
Oil on canvas, 71" x 40" (180.3 x 101.6cm), signed and dated 1884

Exhibited: Autumn Exhibition, Manchester, 1884, number 361; Milmo-Penny Fine Art, December 2006, catalogue entry:

William Hennessy spent the summer months in Normandy where he had a residence close to the port of Honfleur. A school of painting, based in Saint Simeon's Inn, was already well established there. Corot, Isabey and Huet were amongst the first painters of the group. Boudin, who was born there, invited Courbet, Jongkind and Monet to join them. It was at this time that Boudin encouraged Monet to paint in the open air and it was this activity that led to the advent of Impressionism. Hennessy might have had this in mind when he painted An Impressionist at Work; Scene in a Normandy Cider Orchard, which he sent to the Royal Academy in 1881. Other Calvados works include Normandy Pippin, 1879; In a Normandy Cider Orchard, 1880 and En Fête - Calvados, 1882.

Scenes set in cider orchards recur many times in Hennessy's work. Perhaps the best known version is Fête Day in a Cider Orchard, Normandy, painted in 1878 and now in the Ulster Museum. Another related painting has just come to light. Painted in 1877, A Couple Seated Before an Inn shows a young man and woman seated at a bench with a pitcher of cider. A girl sits in the doorway wearing the traditional costume similar to that worn by the woman who bends down to gather apples in the present painting. Hennessy must have been conscious of Millet's work, when he drew this figure in her back-breaking pose.

The apples are shaken from the tree by a man with a long pole. His pose and that of the stooping woman are reminiscent of Osborne's famous orchard scene painted in Quimperle in the previous year (National Gallery of Ireland). It may be that Hennessy was familiar with Osborne's painting or that they both borrowed from the same motifs. The scene portrays an idyllic lifestyle. The orchard is set behind a traditional thatched Norman farmhouse from which an old woman approaches with an empty basket. A dappled light falls on the rich and fertile grasses that grow amongst the trees. A young woman in more modern dress has filled her basket. She leans to one side against its weight as she carries it off to the cider press.
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