Bought a dark and dingy painting, with several holes, it was cheap but something about it I liked. I believe it is a painting of Shylock there's the poison bottle, key, knife and what looks like a pound of flesh spilling from the goblet - that or I have a vivid imagination!Seems I'm lucky when buying unloved paintings ...
This is the reverse. Someone had hastily tacked the canvas to its stretcher.
And beneath this painting was another - a bog off - 'buy one get one free' ...
Not in great condition but a pleasant painting.So now with the 1st painting removed the back of the canvas is revealed.
Almost certain these are paintings by Edward Irvine Halliday - not many other Hallidays fit the time period. Anyway I finished cleaning, repairing and framing the interior scene and there, faint but clear is:
So these two paintings are definitely by Edward Irvine Halliday, but more than that, he gives his address as 65 Boulevard Arago Paris, the artists' commune.
Pierre Roy 1880–1950 resided at the house at the same time as Halliday and in Roy's painting (Boris Anrep in his Studio, 65 Boulevard Arago) of still life with statue, it shows similarities with the still life I bought.
The finished painting framed from an old oak frame I've had for ages but suits perfectly.
Similar elements are shown in this later work. A coral dress, palette, and angles....
Notes on 65, Boulevard Arago, Paris.
In 1923 Ford Madox moved with the Australian painter Stella Bowen into a cottage in the Parisian artists' colony known as the Cité Fleurie at 65, Boulevard Arago. Hemingway played tennis at the tennis courts at number 69. The guillotine's thud, based at the Santé prison, added a certain frisson to Hemmingway's famous parties.
Ford Madox founded the transatlantic review, and published James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and the young Ernest Hemingway, whom Ford took on as a sub-editor from this address.Ford Madox Ford (born Ford Hermann Hueffer December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature.
Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–28) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–08). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s '100 Greatest Novels of All Time., and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".
He was named after his maternal grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, whose biography he would eventually write.
Guardian archive, 11 May 1934:
PARIS, MAY 10.
Today, the anniversary of the Nazis' ceremonial burning of books outside the Opera House in Berlin, the 'German Library of Burnt Books' was opened at 65, Boulevard Arago, Paris. The library was crowded this afternoon by an audience which included many of the best-known German scholars now in exile.
The neighbourhood is classified as a historical monument and houses 29 art studios built between 1878 and 1881 constructed from materials from the former 'Pavillon de l'Alimentation' at the Universal Exposition of 1878. This is the oldest artists' neighbourhood of Paris.
Gauguin and Modigliani were among its residents at the beginning of the XIXth century.
