Oil on board. Signed lower centre. Framed and glazed. Image size 33 x 21.5cm
We love a picture that tells a story. This painting shows the beginning of the one that reached its crescendo with the words, ‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’ The fact that Stanley said nothing of the kind is irrelevant of course, it is what we continue to remember. Stanley’s life story is worth reading, for a start his name was not Stanley at all….. On this occasion he had been sent by James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald to find Livingstone, who had not been heard of for months. He set off from Zanzibar to the mainland, and into Tanganyika, dressed in white, with his thoroughbred stallion, seen in the background of this painting, and a hundred or so porters. Everything went wrong. The stallion swiftly died of a tsetse fly bite; porters deserted or died and the expedition was pursued by armed local warriors shouting ‘niama, niama’ (meat, meat). Stanley, however, as we know, did find Livingstone. All good boys own stuff and grist to the Cuneo mill.
Cyrus Cincinnati Cuneo, known as ‘Ciro’, had an eventful life himself, sadly cut short by death from blood poisoning after he was accidentally pricked by a hatpin while dancing at a party. He was Italian, born in the USA into an artistic family. His 2 brothers were also artists and his son, Terence Cuneo, became the most famous of all, in particular for his railway paintings. Ciro moved to Paris to train at the Carlo Rossi Academy and became head student to J A M Whistler, supplementing his income by giving boxing lessons. He moved to UK in 1903 and was in continuous demand as an illustrator of books and magazines, notably working on images of the funeral of Edward VII and the coronation of George V for the Illustrated London News , and thereafter of war subjects when war broke out in 1914. He was extremely well-known and his paintings were widely seen. One, sold in 1915, raised enough money to pay for 2 ambulances for the battlefields in France. Much of Ciro Cuneo’s work was held by the Canadian Pacific Railway company in London, for whom he had carried out commissions in Canada. It was tragically destroyed when the CPR offices were burnt down during the Blitz in 1940.
This painting is very typical of his style and the stories and events he illustrated. Cuneo’s paintings are rare due the CPR fire and his short life. His illustrations may be found in Edwardian books of adventure, real or fictional, from Rider Haggard to the 1916 ‘YMCA Gift Book’. Occasionally paintings appear in the market. His extremely attractive painting ‘The Picnic’ (63.5 x76.2cm) was sold by Christies in 2008 for £27,500
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