Artwork of old capital on show in Abu Dhabi
STANDING in one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world is a scene that would be familiar to anyone who remembers Cardiff docks before the transformation of the Bay.
In among works by Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci and Claude Monet, in Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, is a painting of one of the Welsh capital’s most iconic areas.
Painted in 1894, it depicts Cardiff at the height of industrial Britain.
The painting shows a steam train pulling out of the docks, which can be seen in the background beyond the smoke blowing in the wind.
Les docks de Cardiff was the work of US painter Lionel Walden, known for his seascapes and marine scenes of Hawaii and Falmouth, Cornwall, where he lived between 1893-97.
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1861, the artist spent the majority of his life living in Paris, where he received medals from the Paris Salon and was made a Knight of the French Legion of Hounour. He died in Chantilly, France, in 1933.
But despite the more exotic surroundings which became inspirations for his Impressionistic works, arguably his most enduring and famous artworks depict the industrial might of Cardiff docklands.
The artist himself exhibited at the Cardiff Fine Art Society in 1893 and made a number of large paintings through the decade with the industrial and maritime views of the Welsh capital as his subject.
A number of his works are exhibited at National Museum Wales, in Cardiff, including Moonlight on the Sea (1899), Entrance to Cardiff Docks, Evening (1893-1897), and The Steel Works, Cardiff at Night (1893-1897), which is one of the museum’s key works in their Welsh landscapes gallery.
While Les docks de Cardiff is one of Walden’s slightly smaller-scale works, it now has pride of place in one of the most glamorous galleries in the world and is possibly the art world’s most famous representation of Cardiff.
The oil painting was initially purchased from the Salon des Artistes Français in 1896, and was exhibited in the Musée du Luxembourg until 1922.
It was then moved to the Musée du Louvre Jeu de Paume befre being moved to the Musée national d’art moderne in 1946.
In 1977 the work came to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris where it remained for many years, before its display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017.