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Lot Essay
Back in Edinburgh in the mid-1920s, as well as his fashionable portraits of Edinburgh society in their New Town houses, Cadell was working on studio interiors and intricate still lifes. The inspiration for many of these still lifes was from items in Cadell's own studio.
'There was no mistaking the house in Ainslie Place in which Bunty lived. He painted the front door in vivid ultramarine ... The main rooms, on the ground floor, were large and well proportioned. He used the drawing room as his studio, and painted the walls in a rich mauve colour in sharp contrast to the brilliant white-painted woodwork of the panelled, inter-connecting doors. The highly polished dark wooden floor, reflected the bright colours of the carefully placed Whytock and Reid furniture and provided the theme for many of his dramatic interiors' (T. Hewlett, Cadell, London, 1988, pp. 53-54).
The fluidity of brushstroke and heightened colour he had developed were adapted to great effect in his Edinburgh interiors. Cadell's still lifes from this period are perhaps his most sophisticated and accomplished paintings, capturing an elegant intelligence in the placing of objects and a striking juxtaposition of swathes of bright colour as revealed in this beautiful painting.
'There was no mistaking the house in Ainslie Place in which Bunty lived. He painted the front door in vivid ultramarine ... The main rooms, on the ground floor, were large and well proportioned. He used the drawing room as his studio, and painted the walls in a rich mauve colour in sharp contrast to the brilliant white-painted woodwork of the panelled, inter-connecting doors. The highly polished dark wooden floor, reflected the bright colours of the carefully placed Whytock and Reid furniture and provided the theme for many of his dramatic interiors' (T. Hewlett, Cadell, London, 1988, pp. 53-54).
The fluidity of brushstroke and heightened colour he had developed were adapted to great effect in his Edinburgh interiors. Cadell's still lifes from this period are perhaps his most sophisticated and accomplished paintings, capturing an elegant intelligence in the placing of objects and a striking juxtaposition of swathes of bright colour as revealed in this beautiful painting.