SIR ALFRED EAST (BRITISH 1849-1913) A VIEW OF A LOW RIDGE Oil on canvas-board Signed (lower right) 22.5 x 30cm (8¾ x 11¾ in.) Provenance: Private Collection, Baron Cornelius Ver Heyden De Lancey (1889-1984) Please note measurements do not include the frame unless otherwise stated. Sir Alfred East was an English painter born in Kettering in Northamptonshire as the youngest of eleven siblings and studied at Glasgow School of Art and then in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Robert-Fleury and Bouguereau. His romantic landscapes show the influence of the Barbizon school. In April 1888 he had shared an exhibition at the galleries of the Fine Art Society with T.C. Gotch and W. Ayerst Ingram, and was commissioned the following year by Marcus Huish, managing director of the Society, to spend six months in Japan to paint the landscape and the people of the country.When the exhibition of 104 paintings from this tour was held at the Fine Art Society in 1890 it was a spectacular success.East also visited Spain and then became the president of the Royal Society of British Artists, a position he held until his death. He was awarded a knighthood in 1910 by King Edward VII. After his death, his body of work was taken back to Kettering and lay in state in the Art Gallery, where it was surrounded by the pictures he had presented to the town previously.His landscapes are remarkable for the lyrical use of colour and for the pleasing rhythm of line which is the result of careful selection and building up of the elements that constitute the scene. They are based on a keen observation of the colour of nature. He left a large number of his works to the town of Kettering on the proviso that they build a gallery to house them and to also encourage local artists.For the next thirty years he immortalised the rich landscape of Britain as it changed with the weather the hour and the season. He also sketched regularly in France, Italy, Spain and North Africa and notably, following a visit in 1889, brought back the landscape of Japan to an appreciative home audience.In later years he was a frequent traveller in the USA, where his work proved equally popular and many of his pictures were bought by big American museums.