Painting of the Week - Arthur Batt
Portrait of Three Donkeys in a Landscape
This charming British Victorian donkey oil painting is by noted New Forest animal artist Arthur Batt. It was painted in 1894 and the setting will be around Lyndhurst in the New Forest where Batt lived and worked. The composition is of the heads of three donkeys as they feed on a gorse bush. It is entitled Old Friends and they do indeed look very relaxed with each other. There is a typical New Forest landscape beyond - a stretch of flat scrubland with more gorse and heather and white cattle grazing in the distance with the hazy New Forest trees beyond, all beneath a blue summers sky. The Donkeys, two light with a darker one in the middle, are beautifully portrayed with great detail and superb brushwork perfectly capturing their features. The gorse bush is a vivid green in the foreground and just coming into bloom. Batt clearly loved animals and one can just imagine the pleasure he got in wandering around the New Forest and painting these beautiful creatures in their natural setting. This is a lovely British Victorian animal oil painting and a great example of Batt's work.
Signed and dated (18) 94 lower right.
Provenance Frost and Reed label verso with title: Old friends - Three Donkeys Feeding on Gorse bush.
Click the link below for this painting
https://www.richardtaylorfineart.com/gallery/new/batt/portrait-of-three-donkeys-in-a-landscape