BC023
St Tropez
[Plage des Graniers]
Landscape viewed from above left. Body of water at left. Lower right two posts tilt to right margin. Right side of canvas merged buildings and vegetation. Centre curved beach and rock outcrop far side of bay. Distant promontory extends towards left margin. Sunrise over promontory.
LL brown brush point Scales 38
LR green brush point 1932
Verso UL (not in artist's hand) pencil A265 26
Verso UL (not in artist's hand) pencil St Tropez (barely legible)
Verso UL (not in artist's hand) ink 8
Verso UR (not in artist's hand) pencil 79-201
Verso Centre (not in artist's hand) brown crayon Turnbill [sic]
Donated to the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand by H. F. V. Scales, 1979
Unstretched and unframed canvas. Pinhole evident UR corner.
Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
Title supplied by artist at time of donation, 1979.
Both inscribed dates are difficult to decipher accurately. Lower left appears to read 38 [1938] and is assumed the more accurate as it has been inscribed at the time of signing. Also given the similar subject matter of the work with Greniar [Graniers], St Tropez, Southern France [BC024] which was dated 1939 by the artist. Lower right 1932 possibly added retrospectively.
A hand-written card included in a file reference Alexander Turnbull Library File Prints, Drawings, Paintings and Prints Collection, notes the date as 1934.
Date given by artist at the time of donation was 1964 as recorded in the collection record at Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand. This date would be incorrect.
It is possible that this painting was brought back to New Zealand by Flora Scales's sister, Mrs Marjorie Hamersley, when she and her husband visited Scales in St Tropez in 1939 after the wedding of her daughter, Patience, in Malta.
This assumption is based on the fact that this painting, along with Mediterranean Village [BC019], Untitled [Basilica and Lighthouse, St Tropez] [BC020], Basilica and Lighthouse, St Tropez, Southern France [BC021], St Tropez [BC022] and Greniar [Graniers], St Tropez, Southern France [BC024], was safely in New Zealand by 1942 when Scales discovered the loss of potentially hundreds of artworks stored in Paris, plundered by Nazis.
This is a view over Plage des Graniers, 1km from the old town of St Tropez, France, across the Baie des Canebiers to the Cap St Pierre. Closely related to Greniar [Graniers], St Tropez, Southern France [BC024].
