Description:

signed, situated and dated lower right: Palermo 17/6 33. TF
oil on paper, mounted on board
260 x 320 mm

Provenance:

Hofjägermeister Thomas Fearnley [only son of the painter] (1841-1927), Oslo, cat. no. 23
Shipowner Thomas Fearnley [grandson of the painter] (1880-1961), Oslo
Benedicte Fearnley, Oslo
By descent
Private collection, London

Exhibitions

Thomas Fearnley Malerier Tedninger, Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 8 – 31 January 1966, no. 23
Thomas Fearnley, Stiftelsen Modums Blaafarveværk, Modum, 24 May – 30 September 1986,
cat.no. 36 (titled: Cactus)

Note:

Fearnley arrived in Rome at Christmas 1832, and in spring 1833 he travelled south spending May and June on an extended walking tour of Sicily. As with many northern painters of the time, the trip had an immediate impact on his work. Coming from the dark skies of Norway and northern Europe, he reveled in the Mediterranean light. The time he spent there and the work he produced, stand today as the artistic highlight of his oeuvre. However, ‘it should be remembered that like many artists in Italy the primary aspect of his visit, and of foreign travel in an age before photography … was not merely to paint (though Fearnley certainly did that copiously), but to record. The objective was to amass a visual archive that for years, maybe decades to come, would serve as a repository and aide-memoire of sights, impressions and experiences that could be used as the foundation and inspiration of finished paintings.’