Attributed to Henry Garratt, (De Ritz), 1875 - 1953. An Auckland based landscape painter who Oil on card in oak frame showing a canoe moored on the bank of a river.
Height 810 mm
Width 420 mm
The myth of de Ritz, was that of an itinerant late-nineteenth century painter (a view echoed in Una Platts’ 1980 Nineteenth Century New Zealand artists: a guide & handbook). Seeing the paintings, one imagined a Romantic wanderer at makeshift easel, smoke rising lazily from a fire whereupon a billy boiled, a river before, a tent beyond: a remittance man, perhaps, a shamed scion escaping old Europe for Antipodean bush, fleeing heartache or financial scandal or the outcome of a duel.