§ Sir William Nicholson (British 1872-1949) View of the Harbour, La Rochelle, 1938 initialled (lower left), oil on canvas (29cm x 44cm (11.37in x 17.4in)) Footnote: Provenance: Rowland, Browse and Delbanco; Sir Malcolm Bullock, Bt, entitled La Rochelle -The Harbour , 1949; Collection of Henry Morris by 1956; Private Collection, UK. Literature: Lillian Browse, William Nicholson , London, 1956, no.480, entitled The Harbour, La Rochelle ; Patricia Reed, William Nicholson: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings , Yale University Press, London & New Haven, 2011, cat.no.825 (col.ill). 'Harbour full of Sailing Fleet with sails from brightest blue to aggressive Red rust and peroxide blonde and pale flesh' (Letter from the artist to his son Ben Nicholson, quoted in A. Nicholson (ed.), William Nicholson painter , London, 1996, p. 261). William Nicholson and his companion, novelist Marguerite Steen, visited La Rochelle twice towards the end of his life, and for the first time in August 1938, when the present work was painted. Nicholson having been fascinated by the town ever since he had acquired a copy of Jacques Callot’s bird’s eye view of the 1627-8 siege of La Rochelle, and he was delighted to be ‘on the spot’. View of the Harbour was painted from the high vantage point of his first-floor window apartment, the trees between the building and quay being excluded as well as the horizon line because of the oblique angle. Instead the canvas is filled with the quay, fishing boats and waters, the maritime activities capturing the artist’s attention and it shares many similarities and qualities to his Harbour in Snow, La Rochelle , in the collection of the Tate in London. In both paintings, Nicholson reduces his colour palette immensely, very much in the manner of Whistler, which results in a harmonious landscape that is punctuated by a few dark figures - aided by the fact that he often painted the harbour when it was covered in snow. As Patricia Reed notes with these works ‘The air is heavy with warm moisture and there is a pellucid quality to the light suggesting the promise of spring. Nicholson’s palette is pale pastel shades with thick impasto. It is a feature of the La Rochelle paintings that his handling of paint varies and he is happy to experiment’. (Patricia Reed, William Nicholson ,2011, p.623). Part of a small but important group of late works, the La Rochelle paintings, most of them looking down upon the harbour from his window, demonstrate Nicholson’s great technical skill, his ability to create a sense of ease and balance within his compositions and are a fitting swan-song to his landscape painting.