This late 19th-century oil painting by English artist John Horace Hooper (1852-1906) depicts a quiet tree-lined road near Purley in Berkshire.
Beneath a dense canopy of mature trees, an old wooden cart has been left beside the track, its shafts resting on the ground and harness loosely discarded alongside. Further ahead, a solitary figure walks beside a horse, gradually disappearing towards a sunlit opening in the distance. It's an ostensibly simple view, yet Hooper has orchestrated it beautifully.
The broad road provides a natural route through the composition, beginning expansively in the foreground before narrowing and gently turning between the trees. Patches of sunlight scattered across its uneven surface draw the eye onwards, while the cart provides a rustic counterweight on the left.
Hooper evidently enjoyed the less manicured aspects of the English countryside. The trees are old and irregular, their trunks thick with growth, while the understorey is tangled and abundant. He builds the woodland through numerous broken touches of olive, ochre, russet and green, allowing individual forms to emerge from an overall impression of foliage. The cart is particularly appealing. Weathered, crooked and apparently abandoned for the moment, it seems part of the landscape itself.
Purley-on-Thames lies on the Berkshire bank of the Thames, immediately downstream from Pangbourne and close to Mapledurham. This places the painting firmly within the countryside that became central to Hooper's career. He exhibited 'Mapledurham' at the Royal Academy in 1888, followed by 'The Thames, near Pangbourne' in 1889, 'Evening on the Upper Thames' in 1892 and 'Near Sonning on Thames' in 1899.
Contemporary critics particularly admired his treatment of this landscape. Reviewing 'Summer on the Upper Thames' in 1893, the South Wales Argus praised its river, meadow, wind-blown trees and tangled vegetation, describing a scene familiar to anyone who had explored the upper reaches of the Thames. Several years later, another critic admired the "quiet reposeful beauty" of his work.
Those words seem equally appropriate here.
Signed in the lower left, further signed and titled on the reverse and held within a gilt frame with classical mouldings and a decorative inner border.
Learn more about John Horace Hooper in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 41” x 29” / 104cm x 74cm
Year of creation: c. 1890
Labels & Inscriptions: Signed and titled on the reverse.
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Areas of fine and settled craquelure, as you would expect. The paint layer is stable. One patched repair. Frame in good condition with minor age-related wear.
Artist’s auction maximum: £5,614 achieved in 1989 for ‘Fishing in a Mountain Stream’.
Our reference: BRV2340
