EDINBURGH.- A painting of George Street in Edinburgh by Francis Cadell, renowned Scottish Colourist, has been found on the reverse of a Denis Peploe painting which was being prepared for exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in Dundas Street next month.

The Scottish Gallery acquired the Denis Peploe and in the process of conservation discovered the Cadell on the verso. Removal from the stretcher revealed the portion not whitewashed over and including the signature bottom left.

Guy Peploe, Director of The Scottish Gallery and son of Denis Peploe, says, “When Cadell died in early December 1937 his sister Jean Percival Clark, well-known as the actress Jean Cadell, came up to Edinburgh to sort out his affairs; she would act as his executor along with his old friend Ted Stewart. She knew the Peploe family well through her brother, who had been so very distraught at the death of his friend two years earlier and she enlisted the help of Denis Peploe, at this time a post-Dip student at Edinburgh College of Art, to help sort through the studio. She gifted to him some of the materials: paint, brushes and canvases which otherwise would be homeless. Amongst the canvases must have been George Street and Charlotte Square, taken off its stretcher, turned and re-stretched ready to be used again. Why Cadell abandoned the painting, which is finished and bears a strong signature is not known. Many years later, Denis Peploe painted his own picture, Begonias, a still life on a trestle table and whitewashed over the Cadell exposed on the verso. His picture is likely to have sold in the mid-seventies and has only recently come back onto the market.”

The Cadell was painted from the artist’s studio at 112 George Street and looks across the street towards the opposite side of George Street and across to Charlotte Square, including the central pediment above what is now Bute House. He has included a woman crossing the street and the charming detail of another female figure leaning from a ground floor window. At this date, around 1909, the townhouse before the corner was still complete but the shop front at the corner and the bay window at first floor level were already as they are today.

Guy Peploe continues, “It is a remarkable painting, not just for its unusual history but as a rare, ambitious townscape. He would paint again from his studio window when he was in Regent Terrace around 1932, looking across to Arthur Seat but otherwise our picture is unique. Its date, a year or so before his trip to Venice, allies it to a number of freely painted interiors of his studio often including the chandelier and mantle piece and the female figure. The palette is relatively restrained, again typical of this time, but he uses strong chromatic notes and brilliant devices like the reflected afternoon light on the windows of the buildings opposite.”

The Denis Peploe is perfectly preserved on the verso, and is a typical vigorous, colourful still life created with the palette knife which could one day be represented as the A-side.

The painting will be on sale in excess of £50,000