Paint box and palette

Wooden paint box and palette, 20^th century.

The paint box lid front edge is hinged and can be lifted upwards. Label inside hinged edge reads, “Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet / 19, Rue Vavin-et-2, Rue Bréa, Paris.”

Either side of the lid features two grooves that run the length of the side allowing the user to slide two small prepared boards into the lid for storage. Appears unused by the artist.

Wooden palette fits inside paint box and shows evidence of the last paintings by the artist in Rotorua [Untitled [Lemon Tree] [BC086], Untitled [Flowers in a Green Pot] [BC085] and Trees in Auckland [BC089]].

Paint box compartments are lined with newspaper. Contents include 11x oil paint tubes, a variety of paint brushes, palette knife, containers for turpentine and linseed oil.

The 11 tubes of oil paint colours are as follows:

WN Artists’ Oil Colour Cadmium Red 219 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Yellow Ochre 136 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Viridian 211 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Flake White N0. 2 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Light Red 120 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Ultramarine Deep 133 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Lemon Yellow Deep 207 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Burnt Sienna 103SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Cadmium Yellow Deep 127 SL
WN Artists’ Oil Colour Yellow Ochre 136 SL
WN Winton Oil Colour Vermillion 42

Paint colour details courtesy Jennifer Twist, Archivist, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand.

Gretchen Albrecht in her essay ‘A Friend of Flora’, published in Flora Scales (The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Nelson, New Zealand, 2018, pg 42) wrote, “On her [Flora Scales] departure she gave me her precious mahogany painting box. Later, when I heard that her eyesight appeared to have stabilised enough to continue painting, I shipped it back to her in France.” The paint box was subsequently used by Scales in New Zealand. It was inherited in 1985 by Patience Tennent, Scales’s niece, who donated it to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington in 1986.