Additional Images

Provenance:

Ex. Coll. F.W.G. Fitzgerald Esq., Toronto;
The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Accession No. 49/2 in 1949; Deaccessioned to benefit art purchases at the AGO

Exhibited:

Art Gallery of Ontario, “The Hague School: Collecting in Canada at the turn of the century”, 7 May- 26 June, 1983, Cat. No. 1 as “The Kelp Gatherers”

Note:

Blommers executed a larger oil on canvas of children on the beach making sandcastles measuring 36.5” x 45.9” (92.8 cm. x 116.7 cm.) entitled “Begrje maken”. The present lot may be a study for the larger work of this subject sold at Christie’s, Amsterdam on 29 April, 1997, lot 160 for $97,633 US.

F.W.G. Fitzgerald Esq. lent several paintings from his collection to exhibitions held at the Art Gallery of Ontario. His collection included another Blommers entitled “Interior” that was exhibited in the “Sixth Loan Exhibition of British and Foreign Paintings”, 6 Jan. -8 Feb., 1920. The exhibition included a work by A.J. Marius Bauer, Cat. No. 4 as well as other 19th and 20th Century Dutch paintings including: M. Bauer, Cat. No. 3; J.S. Kever, Cat. No. 58; Willem Maris, Cat. No. 82; G. Poggenbeek, Cat. No. 106; a Modern Dutch School example, Cat. No. 131 as well as French and British paintings by Ignace Fantin-Latour, Cat. No. 34 and Sir John Lavery, Cat. No. 70.

In another exhibition at the AGO: “Catalogue of an Exhibition of Paintings by French Artists”, 6 Jan. - 5 Feb., 1922, Fitzgerald lent an Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, “The End of Day”, Cat. No. 26; an Ignace Fantin-Latour, Cat. No. 35; an Adolphe Monticelli, Cat. No. 68 and two Camille Pissarro’s, Cat. Nos. 73 and 74.

F. W. G. Fitzgerald Esq. of Toronto was one of the editors of Toronto’s first Catholic newspaper, “The Mirror”, which was published from 1837 until 1893, when the paper was merged into the “Catholic Register”.