Property from a Private Collection

TOM EDWIN MOSTYN (BRITISH 1864-1930)
The enchanted garden
oil on canvas
36 x 43 ½ in (91.4 x 110.5 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Sale, Christie's, London, 26 November 2014, lot 8
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Born in Liverpool in 1864, Tom Edwin Mostyn studied at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, began exhibiting in 1880, and by 1893 was presenting works at the Royal Academy of Art in London. Though his artistic style was considerably wide-ranging, Mostyn is primarily recognised for the mesmerising garden scenes of which the present lot is an especially fine example.

Despite a majority of Mostyn’s earlier and more realist works being profoundly influenced by a strong anti-‘Victorian Materialist’ sentiment, Mostyn certainly followed the trends of more traditional Victorian artists and simultaneously completed a number of lavish Victorian garden scenes. In the years after the First World War, Mostyn altered his style considerably, altogether abandoning the realist style of his earlier oeuvre. Instead, he began composing dreamlike compositions, enriching traditional landscape images with his own idealised visions of nature.

The present work presents an intense flood of colour intended to captivate the viewer in a hypnotic dream state. Tempting the eye with swirling trees and painterly clouds that echo the pastoral scenes of the French rococo, Mostyn’s composition leads the viewer into a space of fictional possibility. Seasons blend together as the tones of autumn are depicted in the auburn bushes that frame the left side of the pathway. Meanwhile, the bright flowers and columnar trees allude to the warmth of a gentle summer’s day. Time appears to stand still as the glassy water reflects the crafted Victorian landscape with great finesse. Reality was of little importance to Mostyn’s artistic intention. Rather, he sought to construct a realm where romance and fantasy played a governing role.