19C Country Scene Oil on Canvas by Percy Smythe

Published by Nevan O Shaughnessy on April 4, 2024April 4, 2024

PRESENTING A VERY RARE AND HIGHLY DESIRABLE 19C Country Scene Oil on Canvas by Percy Smythe.

This is an ORIGINAL oil on canvas painted by the renowned British Artist Lionel Percy Smythe.

Painted circa 1880-90, it depicts a Country or Rural Scene of a small hamlet/village with thatched roofs, horses, farmers and hay carts.

It is equally possible that this is scene from rural England or more likely rural Normandy in France.

SIMPLY STUNNING QUALITY and in SUPERB CONDITION!

Signed ‘P. Smythe” on the bottom right in red. The “P” is for Percy, but the artist’s full name was Lionel Percy Smythe but he ‘went by’ Percy.

hisly being more noted for his watercolors, Smythe did in fact also paint many oils on canvas of rural scenes. These works by Smythe are EXTREMELY RARE and VERY VALUABLE.

LIONEL PERCY SMYTHE: Lionel Percy Smythe RA RWS RI ROI (London 4 September 1839 – July 1918) was an English artist, and etcher.
Lionel Percy Smythe was the illegitimate son of Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford and Katherine Benham (later Mrs Wyllie). He was born in London in 1839 and spent his early years in France, where his younger sister and brother were born. The family returned to London in 1843 and lived in Gloucester Crescent, Camden). Smythe was educated at King’s College School. He was also partly educated in France and spent holidays there at Wimereux in Normandy with his stepfather William Morrison Wyllie and family. He trained in art at the Heatherley School of Fine Art. He was half brother of the artists William Lionel Wyllie and Charles William Wyllie.

Smythe exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1863 (becoming a member in 1911) and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours from 1881 (becoming a member in 1880) – he eventually transferred his allegiance to the Royal Watercolour Society in 1892, becoming a member in 1894. Smythe painted rural landscapes, genre and maritime scenes, people and animals in both oils and watercolours, and became associated with a group of artists called the “Idyllists”.

Smythe and his wife Alice made frequent trips to France and eventually settled in Normandy in 1879, in an old Napoleonic fortress on the coast at Wimereux – until the building was inundated by the sea. Subsequently they moved, in 1882, to the Château d’Honvault on a hill between Wimereux and Boulogne. The couple had three children, of whom Minnie Smythe also became a painter. Smythe lived and worked here until his death in 1918, the countryside and rural life of the area becoming the main inspiration for his art.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Percy_Smythe

This an example of Smythe’s authentic signature:

You can see the similarity to the signature on this painting, with the letters of his surname all in capitals:

This painting has all the signs of genuine age that one would expect from a painting from the late 19th or very early 20th Centuries. It appears to be in it’s original frame.

It is in SUPERB CONDITION.

WE are CONFIDENT that this is an authentic Smythe Oil on Canvas.