"Scales attended Canterbury College School of Art and studied painting in London before returning to New Zealand in 1912. After World War I her family settled in Nelson where she worked as an orchardist, and one of the works in the Richardson Collection Lot 108 Nelson Farm Landscape [BC127] dates from these years. Like other early works, including Lot 107 Shipping Wellington Harbour [BC128] and Lot 109 Moored Yachts [BC010] it is painted in a harmonious range of low-keyed colours and demonstrates an impressionist interest in atmospheric effects."
BC127
Untitled
[Nelson Farm Landscape]
Rural scene. Road curves from left lower edge into middle distance. Midground wooden bridge railings. Plants at either side of bridge, flax flowers or seed pods on plants at right. Buildings, hazy hills and trees in background.
Date
c. 1920 – 1929
Object type
painting
Medium and materials
oil on canvas on board
Dimensions
220x262mm
Place Made
New Zealand
Inscriptions
LR dark brown brush point Flora Scales
Verso framer’s label City Art, 96 Disraeli St, Christchurch, Job No 5036
Verso Left label Flora Scales, Nelson Farm Landscape, oil on canvasboard, 220 x 260, purchased 25/11/08, Cost $3,500.00
Details
Provenance
Sold by auction at Webb's, Auckland, New Zealand, Important New Zealand Works of Art, 27.03.1996, Lot 1
Sold by auction at Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, New Zealand, The Sir Ivor Richardson Art Collection, 22.03.2006, Lot 108
Purchased by Scales Corporation Limited, Christchurch, New Zealand, from Ferner Galleries, New Zealand, 25.11.2008
Condition Report
Pinholes evident lower left and right corners
Current Collection
Scales Corporation Limited
Current Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
General notes
Title, [Nelson Farm Landscape], may have originated in an auctioneer’s catalogue.
In three of Scales’s early 1920s landscape paintings, Untitled [Landscape with curved road and trees] [BC121], Untitled [Nelson Farm Landscape] [BC127] and The Valley Road [BC139], a wide curved road leads deep into the middle distance on a strong left to right diagonal implying by its curve an eventual return towards the centre of the composition to balance the two point perspective, in keeping with the conventions of landscape painting in New Zealand at that time.
Exhibitions
References
Catalogue essay by Jill Trevelyan, The Sir Ivor Richardson Art Collection, Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, New Zealand, 22.03.2006
Acknowledgments
Photos by John Collie