Private Collection

Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)

As the crackling of thorns under a pot…, circa 1920

SKU: 7791
Tempera on panel
Signed with monogram and inscribed with title, 
and also inscribed in pencil The laughter of fools
10 x 91/2 in. (25.5 x 24 cm.)

Size:
Height – 25.5cm
Width – 24cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
The Fine Art Society 1987; Private collection New York.
Presentation:
framed

According to a note written by Armfield in 1971 (note book no VIII p 695) the title comes from Ecclesiastes 7.6 For as the crackling of thorn bushes under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool; And this too is futility.

Armfield might also have had in mind Psalm 58:9
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

As crackling nettles under kettles, As crackling stubble makes the pot bubble are the nearest English equivalents. The image is drawn from the Eastern use of hay, stubble, and thorns for fuel (Matthew 6:30; Psalm 118:12). A fire of such material, burnt up more quickly than the charcoal embers (Jeremiah 26:22; John 18:18), which were also in common use, but then it also died out quickly and left nothing but cold dead ashes. So it would be with the mirth which was merely frivolous or foul. That also would take its place in the catalogue of vanities.
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THE ARTIST

Maxwell
Armfield
1881 - 1972

Painter and decorative artist, especially in tempera, and writer. Born in Ringwood, Hampshire, Armfield was educated at Birmingham School of Art – there is a Birminfham Arts and Crafts flavour in his pictures – then in Paris and Italy. Exhibited extensively, including RA, Fine Art Society, for long a noted dealer in his work, NEAC, Leicester Galleries and abroad. His work is held by the British Museum, provincial and overseas galleries. He illustrated about 20 books and wrote A Manual of Tempera Painting, Tempera Painting Today, An Artist in America and An Artist in Italy. During World War I, with his writer wife Constance Smedley, Armfield attempted to set up a high-flown peoples’ Greenleaf Theatre in his studio, an abortive venture amusingly recalled by Margaret Gardiner in her book A Scatter of Memories. Armfield was a painter of landscape and still life well crafted and full of detail. Lived in Bath, Somerset.

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Still Life, 1914
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Pacific Portrait, c.1915’22
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Profile portrait of a Navaho Indian, circa 1918
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Love in the Mist – study of a Nigella Damascena seed head
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Pot of Delfts Blue
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Datura in Bronze
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Still Life, Grand Canyon, 1917
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Winter Wood
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
As the crackling of thorns under a pot…, circa 1920
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Still life with Pheasant’s Eye Daffodil in a Pewter Vase
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
Madonna of the Desert, circa 1916
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
New Roses, carpet design, 1935
Maxwell Armfield (1881 - 1972)
The Queen of the Darket, Tales from Timbuctoo, circa 1923