Duncan Grant, 
British 1885-1978 - 
Near Toulon, 1937; 
oil on board, signed and dated lower left 'D....

Duncan Grant, 
British 1885-1978 - 

Near Toulon, 1937; 

oil on board, signed and dated lower left 'D. Grant 37', 45.7 x 55 cm (ARR) 

Provenance: 
with Thos. Agnew & Sons, London (according to the label attached to the reverse of the frame);
The Estate of Lady Jessel 

Exhibited: 
Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, no.29 (according to the label attached to the reverse of the frame) 

Note: 
the work was most likely exhibited as part of a group show at Agnew's, as the label lists both the title of the work and the artist's full name, which would not be the case for a solo exhibition. In Grant's 1937 Agnew solo exhibition catalogue, two oil paintings with the title 'Fort St. Louis, Toulon are listed under numbers 5 and 11.

Grant painted a number of scenes depicting Toulon harbour in both the 1920s and 30s, two of which are now in public collections; 'Harbour Toulon: Sketch, 1928' (Herefordshire Museums & Galleries) and 'Fort St Louis, Toulon, France, 1937' (Touchstones Rochdale). In a letter written to Toulon to Vanessa Bell in 1937, now in the Tate Archive, Grant references meeting with Edward Sackville-West and the painter and writer Adrian Stokes. 

Duncan Grant was a central member of the Bloomsbury Group, closely associated with seminal figures in early 20th century British culture such as Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, alongside the art critic Roger Fry, the latter having a particularly strong impact on Grant's artistic approach. Grant's works can be found in a wide number of collections throughout the country, including the Tate Britain and the V&A in London, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. His work will be the centre of a major exhibition at Tate Britain in 2026, 'Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant'.