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signed, dated and inscribed l.l.: Arthur Melville 86; later inscribed by George Melville l.l.; G.M. 22

watercolour with bodycolour

PROVENANCE

Edinburgh, Dowells, 1922;
Dr. George Melville, M.D. of Nottingham and thence by descent to Dr. A.G.G. Melville F.R.C.S.E.;
Christie's, 8 June 1995, lot 863
EXHIBITED

Dundee Museums and Art Galleries, Arthur Melville, A.R.S.A., R.S.W., R.W.S., November 1977 - June 1978, no. 23
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

A. E. Mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impressionist 1855-1904, 1951, pp. 76, 151, no. 428;
Iain Gale, Arthur Melville, 1996, pg. 54, repr. pg. 55, pl. 44
CATALOGUE NOTE

This sketch for The Lawn Tennis Party at Marcus, a painting of 1889, was executed three years earlier en plein-air at Marcus, the home of his Melville's friend John Robertson. Marcus lay at Angus, between the towns of Brechin and Forfar. Robertson is seen seated at the table with the Reverend John Herkless in The Tennis Party at Marcus whilst his wife plays tennis with Mrs (later Lady) Herkless, their white dresses shimmering in the autumn sunlight as the trees turn golden and begin to shed their leaves onto the lawns in front of the house.

Lawn tennis was invented in 1874 by Major Walter Wingfield who took out a patent for a portable court which could be erected on any flat piece of grassed area. The All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon was quick to adopt the sport and laid down several permanent courts. Within a short time the popularity of the sport had spread throughout the British Empire and begun to take root in North America, with courts at Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club. During the 1880s lawn tennis became more popular than many outdoor pursuits which were promoted for their health-giving attributes. It was seen as particularly beneficial recreation for young people and also offered opportunities for them to interact unsupervised. Dr. Jaeger marketing a range of woollen underwear specifically for players and garden parties of the 1880s and 1890s were often enlivened by the host suggesting a game of tennis on his lawn.

Shortly before Melville began painting The Lawn Tennis Party at Marcus, John Lavery was also at work upon his famous The Tennis Party (Aberdeen Art Gallery) which shares undeniable similarities. Kenneth McKonkey has confirmed that Melville, along with Guthrie and Walton, had been present at Cartbank House near Paisley where Lavery made studies for The Tennis Party.

Unlike Melville's contemporary picture, an oil entitled Audrey and Her Goats (Tate Britain) which depicts a rather staged idyllic Shakespearean pastoral, The Lawn Tennis Party at Marcus portrays 'a straightforward depiction of modern life; a throwback to his Dutch and Barbizon-influenced paintings of 1880' (Iain Gale, Arthur Melville, 1996, pg 54.) This was a period in which 'The Glasgow Boys' were still in their infancy as a movement and in the winter of 1883-1884 he had joined Crawhall, Guthrie and Walton on the Berwickshire coast. Corsan Morton and MacGregor had joined the colony of artists through the summer and the autumn and the fraternity had begun to share their ideas and form a cohesive artistic movement. Melville's paintings of the early 1880s contain the forceful spontaneity and inspiration of the early work of the Glasgow Boys when new ideas were fresh and heart-felt.