Mrs. John Henry Macdonell
Sale, Sotheby's London, 2nd December 1981, lot 262, where acquired by the present owner

The sheet is sound and is not laid down but is attached to the mount with adhesive tape about the edges. There are artist's pinholes in the corners and to the centre of the upper edge. There are a few small spots of flaking paint with tiny flecks of resultant paint loss to places in the red pigment, mainly to one or two spots upper right. The surface is slightly dirty and the blue paper is marginally discoloured in places with a few flecks of foxing, largely to the centre of the composition. Otherwise in apparently good condition. Held under glass in a painted wood frame with a grey mount. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 6242 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Having first visited the vibrant regions of the South of France in 1947, Sutherland began to adopt a much brighter palette (see for example Still Life with Gourds, lot 10).

The spiky and anthropomorphic shapes of the palm trees particularly caught🐭 his attention, perhaps linking back to the thorn trees he had been previously painting as well as the gnarled branches of the Welsh hedgerows he had studied prior to WWII, and many of the first paintings and studies produced in France explore these themes. Thus the present work can be seen to date from a point in his oeuvre where the artist was drawing together the anthropomorphic and organic themes of his earlier work with the liberating colours of southern Europe. The implied thick ribbed and rubbery texture of the banana leaf which arches over the composition must have appeared highly exotic to a British audience in the immediate post-war period, but this sort of imagery, wit♛h its suggestion of sun and the warm south clearly struck a chord as we see it appearing in not just the work of Sutherland, but also that of many of his younger contemporaries, such as Minton, Freud and Craxton.