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Lord Thorneycroft - Watercolours - Pair of Venice

SOLD

Code: 10998



A Lovely Pair of Watercolours by Lord Thorneycroft of 'Rio Della Verona' and 'Giardino San Martini' c1980 - Rio Della Verona was exhibited at 'Royal Academy' see pictures with frames 38 x 48 cm and 55 x 44 cm. Both can be seen in London currently with a client

Elected as a Conservative MP in 1938, Thorneycroft became President of the Board of Trade in 1951, and was the youngest member of Winston Churchill's cabinet. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in harold Macmillan government in 1957, and was Minister of Defence (1962-64). Thorneycroft was in favour of government cuts to control inflation, but this was unpopular, and he resigned the next year. Returning to cabinet in 1960, he held several posts in government and opposition, before losing his seat in the 1966 election. He then entered the House of Lords as Baron Thorneycroft of Dunston. A strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher's monetarist policies, she made him Chairman of the Conservative Party in 1975.

It was a mark of Thorneycroft's lack of vanity, and his healthy perspective on life, that the only book he published was on painting. Modestly entitled The Amateur: a Companion to Watercolour (1985), it was about how to enjoy painting rather than how to paint, and displayed a comprehensive knowledge of and expertise upon the subject. Though an amateur in the truest sense, there was nothing mediocre about Thorneycroft's abilities as a painter. He was a member of the Royal Academy and of the Royal Society of British Artists, and held nine exhibitions: at the Trafford Gallery in 1961 and 1970, at Chichester in 1963, at the Café Royal in 1976, 1981, and 1989, at the Mall Galleries in 1984, at the Cadogan Gallery in 1987, and at Lichfield in 1989. When meeting his civil servants at the Ministry of Aviation in 1960 he told them that his one indulgence was that he wished to be left free to draw in the life class of the Chelsea School of Art on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Lord Clark once observed of Thorneycroft: ‘There are plenty of VIPs who happen to paint; Peter is a painter who happens to be a VIP’ (Independent, 6 June 1994). He painted until shortly before his death, making long annual trips to Venice with his wife—a founder member of the Venice in Peril fund—where he indulged his hobby.


Condition : Very Good
Materials : Watercolour
Origin : Spanish, European
Manufacture Date : c1980