CJA-Stones, Valley with Field Barn and Stream, 1991

The signature, ‘CJA-Stones’, points to Christopher John Assheton-Stones (1947-1999), whose full name it abbreviates. He took up pastel young and showed at the Paris Salon at sixteen. After art school in Exeter and Poole and three years at Sotheby’s, he painted, taught and wrote on pastel, exhibiting with the Pastel Society and the Royal West of England Academy.

A broad valley opens beneath a heavy grey sky, with a break of light low on the horizon. Drystone walls divide the fields, a stone barn sits to the left and a stream runs down the right between trees. The flat-topped hill and walled pastures suggest the Pennines, though the place is not named. The pastel is laid on in broad, layered strokes, cool greens against slate greys.

Pastel on paper. Signed and dated lower left ‘CJA-Stones 91’. Glazed, in a painted green-grey wooden frame.