Lot 18

Sir Robert Mond, Coombe Bank, United Kingdom
Masterpiece Gallery, Hobart 1985
Private collection, Hobart
Leski Auctions, Melbourne, 15 December 2009, lot 3
Private collection, Western Australia

In the spring of 1913, Arthur Streeton accepted a commission from Robert Mond to paint a series of landscapes depicting the grounds and surrounds of Coombe Bank, a grand Palladian estate located in Sevenoaks, Kent. The commission marked an important moment in Streeton's English period and resulted in a series of lyrical works celebrating the cultivated beauty of the English countryside.

Coombe Bank was originally constructed in 1725 for the Duke of Argyll and acquired in 1906 by industrialist and philanthropist Ludwig Mond. Upon Ludwig's death in 1909, the estate passed to his son Robert Mond, who undertook significant alterations to the gardens, developing a formal rose garden, rockery, and expansive parklands. An admirer of Streeton's work, Mond invited the artist, his wife Nora, and their son Oliver to stay at Coombe Bank over Easter 1913. In a letter to Walter Pring, Streeton described their days as full of 'billiards, golf, fishing, shooting 'music', peaches, grapes, flowers - wanting for nothing.' (1)

'The Rose Garden, Coombe Bank' (c.1913) was one of approximately twelve works commissioned for the house and reflects Streeton's impressionistic handling of the landscape at its most spontaneous and immediate. Likely painted en plein air, the composition offers an elevated perspective over the manicured garden, its circular beds and central fountain arranged with ornamental precision. The sweeping brushwork captures the movement of light and foliage, while the soft atmospheric haze in the distance shifting the clarity of an English spring day.

(1) Arthur Streeton, Letter to Walter Pring, 30 March 1913, cited in Galbally, A. and Gray, A. (eds.), Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton 1890 - 1943, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989, p. 125