Harvey horse painting at Canterbury
A previously unrecorded work by Newlyn School artist Harold Harvey, which has been in the same Kent family ownership for over 100 years, is expected to sell for £12,000-15,000 in the two-day sale at The Canterbury Auction Galleries on April 12th to 13th.
The Village Farrier, showing a blacksmith shoeing a working horse outside his cottage smithy set on the banks of a river, an oil on canvas 16ins x 12ins, is signed in full and dated ’06, four years before it was purchased by the great aunt of the present owner.
Born in Penzance, the son of a bank clerk, Harold Harvey (1874-1941) was the only Cornishman to play a significant role in both the Newlyn School and the Lamorna group of artists He and his wife and fellow artist, Gertrude Bodinnar, whom he met when she posed for him, were close friends with many of the artists there, notably Laura and Harold Knight.
The location of the painting is thought to be on the Coombe River, which rises above Newlyn and flows through a wooded area to the sea between the fishing port and Penzance. It was shown for the first time last year at Penlee House gallery and museum in Penzance, in an exhibition titled Sons & Daughters of the Soil.