PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland Purchased from Page Blackie Gallery 2008 Certificate of Authenticity from Page Blackie Gallery affixed verso

REFERENCE
The finished painting is in the collection of Fletcher Trust. See illustration p.113

Ralph Vaughan Williams studied with Parry at the Royal College of Music, with Brüch in Berlin and Ravel in Paris. He was a leading figure, with Holst, in the folk-song revival and shifted the course of English-language hymnody with his English Hymnal (1906). Williams was a teacher of Composition at the Royal College of Music (1919-39), he established a native school of music based on choral and ballad traditions. He composed nine symphonies, operas, ballets, chamber music, and secular and religious vocal music. Notable works include: A Sea Symphony (1910), based on Walt Whitman's poems, A London Symphony (1914) and The Lark Ascending (1914-20).