Squared for transfer

Watercolour over pencil, 18 by 13.5 cm (7 by 5 ¼ ins)

Provenance: Trustees of the Paul Nash estate; the Hamet Gallery

Literature: Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, p.413, no.687

The present work was executed on a trip Nash made to the French Riviera in 1930. It forms part of a series of Café drawings made at this date which explore the effect of the mirror image. Most French Cafes in this era had mirrors in their interiors which according to Margot Eates “enabled (Nash) to explore the possibilities of the double image, since they served as both a background to objects in a room and a means of looking to the street outside with one’s back to it” (Margot Eates, Paul Nash, The Master of the Image, John Murray, 1973, p.45). There is a larger near-identical study related to this work (Eates, ibid, pl.62) and a related daytime work often know as Day Piece, Toulon (Eates, ibid, pl.63).