Picherit’s Farm
Max Meldrum
Details
- Artist
- Max Meldrum
- Title
- Picherit’s Farm
- Year
- c.1910
- Medium
- watercolour on paper
- Size
- 15.5 x 23.5 cm
- Details
signed lower left: M Medlrum
- Stock Number
- 83492
Provenance
unknown
Leonard Joel, Nov 1985
private collection, Melbourne
Exhibited
From a Scrap of Paper: Drawing, Watercolour, Paint, Print, Photography, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, 15 November - 16 December 2011
Further Information
Max Meldrum’s Picherit’s Farm ties in with an exemplary oil on canvas painting, of the same title, held at the National Gallery of Victoria. Significantly larger, measuring 85 x 103 cm, the watercolour could have been a preliminary study.
Although slightly different in composition from the larger oil painting, the same farmhouse is clearly depicted in both works. Meldrum was awarded the National Gallery Travelling Scholarship in 1899 and from around 1904, he travelled regularly from Paris to Brittany to meet with Jeanne Nitsch who he was to marry in 1907. Picherit’s Farm is located in Pace, Brittany where Meldrum lived for some time and where he was able to absorb the countryside which inspired the Barbizon painters and look to their techniques, especially those of Corot.
The National Gallery of Victoria’s collection also includes Study for Picherit’s Farm, 1910, an oil on canvas on composition board measuring 34.0 x 32.8 cm. The study depicts a different side of the farmhouse, possibly the side of the house, which is not visible in the other two versions of Picherit’s Farm.