It is a relatively little known fact that the National Gallery of Wales, in Cardiff, contains one of the world’s most remarkable collections of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting. Not before time, those in charge of the museum are making vigorous attempts to remedy the general lack of awareness, both in this country and abroad, of the treasures that it contains. These include, among much else, Renoir’s magnificent, sexy portrait of the guttersnipe-turned-actress, Henriette Henriot, known as La Parisienne; a clutch of exceptionally powerful Cezannes; several Monets, amongst which may be seen three of his most limpid and delicate waterlily paintings; and one of Vincent Van Gogh’s last, most technically adventurous and emotionally affecting pictures, Rain – Auvers.

The works in question have recently been rehung in the museum’selegant, generously proportioned central galleries. Meanwhile, Ann Sumner, Curator and Assistant Keeper in the Department of Art, has been giving a series of lectures about the paintings across Europe and the United States. The hope is that increased awareness may lead to more fruitful exchange – whether in the form of single loans or entire exhibitions – between the National Gallery of Wales and other institutions similarly rich in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Sumner has also written the first book about the gallery’s late ninteenth and early twentieth-century French pictures to have been published in more than twenty years. Entitled Colour and Light, it provides the fullest account yet of how the collection was formed, by two extraordinary women, and of how they eventually decided to give it to Wales.

At the start of the twentieth century, Gwendoline Davies (1882-1951) and Margaret Davies (1884-1963) were the two richest unwed women in the British Isles, with a combined personal fortune of £1,000,000 and an annual income of around £40,000. At...

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