John Brett, A.R.A.

Brett only discovered Cornwall in 1870 when he honeymooned there rather than going to France as he had planned because war had been declared between the French and Prussians. Brett returned to St Ives in September 1872 and spent a month there. He had previously worked largely in watercolour rather than oil but on the beach at St Ives he worked on a series of delightful, small oil paintings. He painted at least 10 oil studies and several watercolours there, many of which feature boats associated with the pilchard fishing industry. This picture portrays a pilchard driver and various gigs drawn up on Porthminster beach, with the Knill monument visible on the horizon in the centre, while another driver is shown out in the bay. View Over the Beach, St Ives was painted eight days after a comparable picture Net Day at St Ives (private collection). There is nothing laboured and no artifice in these studies of Cornish life at low tide, with fishermen busily preparing their boats as a woman looks on.

View Over the Beach, St Ives was once in the prestigious collection of Joseph Beausire, a Birkenhead businessman and Chairman of the West India and Pacific Steamship Company. Beausire was an avid art collector and supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites and had figurative pictures by Rossetti, Sandys, Burne-Jones, Strudwick and Poynter in his collection along with landscapes by Turner, Cotman and Constable. He owned several paintings by Brett, including another view of St Ives now in the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art. Beausire died in 1907 but it was not until 1934 that the main body of his collection was sold. View Over the Beach, St Ives was included in his sale in 1934 and although it is recorded as selling, it was still in the Beausire family collection in 1969 when it was sold at Sotheby's. This was a year before another member of the family made a bequest of watercolours to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

We are grateful to Charles Brett for his assistance with this catalogue note.