VATTETOT-SUR-MER
titled, dedicated and dated VATTETOT / SUR MER / 1899 / WILL ROTHENSTEIN and ALICE ROTHENSTEIN lower centre
gouache and watercolour on silk
16.5 x 37cm; 6 1/2 x 14 1/2in (fan shaped)
51.5 x 64cm; 20 1/4 x 25 1/4in (framed)

Property from an English Private Collection

Provenance
William and Alice Rothenstein, London (a wedding present from the artist)
Mrs Rachel Ward (née Rothenstein; 1903-1989, inherited from the above)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibited
London, The Leicester Galleries, The Collection of Sir William Rothenstein, 1946, no. 60

The present work, a wedding present from Orpen to William Rothenstein and his new bride Alice (née Newstub), celebrates the couple on holiday with friends in Vattetot on the Normandy coast. Rothenstein had married Alice on 11th June 1899. The figures depicted from top left are: Albert Rothenstein (later Rutherston) and William Orpen, Alice and William Rothenstein, Grace Knewstub (Alice’s sister, later Mrs. William Orpen) and John Herbert Everett, a fellow Slade student with Albert and Orpen. In the lower medallions are Augustus John (left) and Charles Conder (right).

Orpen had first met William Rothenstein through his brother Albert when he was a fellow student at the Slade. Together with Augustus John the trio formed what William jocularly referred to as 'the three musketeers'. William and Alice had discovered Vattetot on a bicycling trip out from Dieppe. In his memoires William writes: 'On our return to London we spoke of Vattetot to John and Conder, who, with Orpen and my brother [Albert], proposed to join us there next summer. When the summer came, it was a large party which descended upon Vattetot; never had so many easels and paint-boxes been seen. It was a glorious time, divided between painting and play.' (William Rothenstein, Men and Memories, London, 1931, vol. 1, p. 347)