Last week I reported that Jackie Sablan had sent me photographs of three paintings by Gerard Ceunis which she bought some years ago. Now another reader, Rid Burnett, has got in touch with information about three Ceunis paintings which he inherited from his late father-in-law, a Hitchin doctor, and has also kindly sent photographs. The family story is that Dr George Carter, who lived in Tilehouse Street in the town, was given the pictures by the artist in lieu of medical fees.
One of the paintings, which is 44 x 39 cm in size, bears the title ‘Ghent’ on the back of the frame and features a view of boats on the canal in the artist’s home city. It appears to be a version of the picture that featured on the Christmas card sent to me last year by Ceunis’ granddaughter, Tessa Cathcart, and which at the time of writing I’m using as the header image for this website. However, the copy owned by Rid is in a fairly conventional realist style, while ‘Canal in Ghent’ employs the impressionist / pointillist technique that is familiar from some of Ceunis’ other paintings.
A second painting, whose dimensions are 37 x 54 cm, is untitled but appears to depict a seashore at evening. It’s also impressionistic in style, showing the setting sun reflected in the pale blue of the water, with the shoreline and buildings a shadowy blur.
The third picture, labelled ‘Soir’ (80 x 57 cm), shows another evening scene, a dramatic sunset providing a background for skaters on a frozen lake or river, with a rather mournful looking balloon seller and his brightly-coloured wares dominating the foreground.
Ceunis clearly enjoyed depicting skaters: see also his drawing of a frozen river at St Ippolyts in Reginald Hine’s The Story of Hitchin Town:
I’m grateful to Rid, and also to Jackie, for sharing these paintings with me and making them available to a wider audience.
The Quest for Ceunis 