A famous painting of Maryport is set to go up for auction later this month.
Priced between £40,000 and £60,000 the popular paining of The Old Quay, Maryport from 1956 by LS Lowry is set to be sold by auction by Bonhams on November 18.
Executed in 1956 The Old Quay, Maryport depicts the 19th century Christ Church which sits quayside in Maryport. Laurence Stephen Lowry visited Cumbria on numerous occasions, often staying with his friend the collector Geoffrey Bennett.
Mr Bennett was ordinated into the Anglican Church in 1962, following which Lowry would address him as the ‘Reverend Gentleman’, and when the artist died in 1976 Mr Bennett conducted Lowry’s funeral service.
Chris Dawson, Bonhams director of modern British and Irish art, explained: “Whilst the present work pre-dates Bennett’s ordination, it is arguable that the high proportion of ecclesiastical subjects among Lowry’s Cumbrian work, such as Church, Wath Brow, Cleator Moor (1948), Brow Street Chapel, Maryport (1956), Rockcliffe Church, near Carlisle (1963) and the present example represent some influence from Lowry’s host.
“Whilst Christ Church and the congregation assembled at its doors take the central position in the present lot, Lowry does not permit it to dominate the composition. His attention is equally given to the many figures which populate the quayside and the street receding to the right of the picture. The same treatment of the scene is applied in an oil Lowry painted in 1954 and a second drawing dating to 1959.”
The original owner of this Lowry drawing, Lady Catherine Walston was the subject of a book published by Carroll & Graf in 2000 titled, The Third Woman: The Secret Passion That Inspired “The End Of The Affair.”
From 1946 the American born Lady Walston was the mistress of the author Graham Greene, whose 1951 novel about a novelist who becomes obsessed with a government bureaucrat’s wife is generally regarded as the author’s masterpiece.
The auction is set to take place at 3pm on November 18.
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