2011 Stoneman Art Loan – 'Belle Ile (1907)'

Belle Ile (1907), by expatriate Australian impressionist, John Peter Russell, is a gouache depiction of the French island of that name located off the northern French coastline.

Russell was overlooked for a long period in Australian art circles, largely because he moved to France early in his career and stayed there, only returning to Australian shortly before his death in 1930. He was close friends with numerous French artists of the period, including Van Gogh, and the work very aptly demonstrates the influence of French impressionism on his art and his wonderful use of light and colour.

This work replaces the first Stoneman loan–Roy de Maistre’s portrait of the Cambridge economist, John Maynard Keynes–that has been hanging in the Perry Room since April 2009, when it was originally displayed at Trinity's forum on the current relevant of Keynes' economic theories.

Both works have been made available to the College under an ongoing arrangement established in 2009 between Trinity and the trustees of the estate of Stuart Rusden Stoneman that provides for the annual loan of a work from this extensive collection to be displayed at Trinity.