FAMAG 1923.14
Melville, Arthur, ARSA RWS (1855-1904): The Peasant Girl (The Faggot Collector), signed and dated 1880, oil on canvas, 103 x 69 cms. Presented to the Corporation of Falmouth in 1923 by Alfred A. de Pass, in memory of his sons.
About the frame
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British Victorian revival of an eighteenth-century Rococo frame, with swept rails; decorated with applied composition ornament: asymmetric rocaille corners and centres, with rinceaux, acanthus tip sight and inner slip; probably regilded.
About the Artist
Arthur Melville was a landscape and figure painter who is celebrated for his skills in watercolour. He was born in Loanhead-of-Guthrie, Forfar, Scotland and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy School under John Campbell Noble. In 1878 he moved to Paris and attended the Academie Julian. He then lived for a while at the artists' colony in Grez-sur-Loing, France, and sold the paintings he produced there to finance journeys to North Africa and India in the autumn of 1880.
From around 1884 he worked closely with several of the pioneering young painters known as the Glasgow Boys in Scotland and London. He continued to travel widely throughout his life, including visiting Spain and Algiers with Frank Brangwyn in 1892. He died tragically aged 49 from typhoid caught during his last trip to Spain.