PROVENANCE Dame Rebecca West (Cicily Isabel Andrews née Fairfield 1892-1983) London Lot 82 Christie's auction, London, 4/11/1983 Elizabeth Steiner Collection

EXHIBITED New Water-colour Drawings Alex Reid & Lefevre, London, England, October - November 1933 Original exhibition label affixed verso New Paintings and Watercolours by Frances Hodgkins, Lefevre Gallery, London October 1937 - November 1937

REFERENCE Frances Hodgkins database number FH1040 completefranceshodgkins.com

Frances Hodgkins arrived in Ibiza, Spain, in December 1932, remaining on the island for over six months. Once temperatures improved, Hodgkins regularly climbed to the walled citadel of Dalt Vila, that towers over the township below. From this vantage point she had numerous views on hand, and equally importantly, the advantage of solitude, allowing her to concentrate on her work. A favoured location was a rough path that led away from the citadel along the ridge overlooking the sweeping bay of Figueretas. As well as making studies of the windmills that lined the path, she pushed further afield, discovering a narrow set of precipitous steps leading towards the water, with little houses clinging to the hillside either side. She painted the lowest house on at least three occasions, focusing on the walled courtyard at the front. Each was painted from a different angle.

In Courtyard, Ibiza, Hodgkins paints a bird in a cage, basking in the sun, while in Ibiza, Balearic Islands, a cat stalks along the wall nearest the sea, animating the scene.

The same courtyard is referred to in Terrace Garden, Ibiza 1933, but Hodgkins has moved down a step or two so that the end wall stands out against the water. It is both a subtle and masterful composition in which nothing is left to chance. The diagonals of the wall and its crenelated outcrop is mirrored by the ochre wall of the house, while the undulating line of roof tiles on the roof's edge leads our eye across the sweeping shoreline to the line of hills beyond, punctuated by the waving verticals of a tree whose branches stand out against the sky.

The rocky shoreline around the peninsula of Ibiza is covered with prickly pears and aloes that thrive in its salty environment. While it is impossible to identify the plants Hodgkins has painted, she translates their forms into a series of fluid, rapidly painted lines against the ochre dabs of the rocky wall.

In February 1934, two months after her major exhibition had concluded, Hodgkins was invited by Duncan Macdonald of Lefevre Galleries to lunch with the famous writer Rebecca West, the purchaser of Terrace Garden, Ibiza. Hodgkins replied, '... It sounds most terribly attractive meeting Rebecca West... - but I simply cannot promise to coming, feeling as I do at my very lowest ebb of intelligence...'. Although reluctant, she almost certainly succumbed, and West later acquired a second watercolour, Bradford-on- Tone, c.1937.

West's married name was Cicily Andrews, née Fairfield, but she is more generally known by her publishing name of Rebecca West. Terrace Garden, Ibiza then passed via Christies into the collection of Trevor and Elizabeth Steiner, where it has remained ever since.

MARY KISLER