Acquired directly from the artist by the Marshall family, Digby, Nova Scotia
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario
Sandy Cove is a small community along Digby Neck, approximately twenty minutes by drive from Maud Lewis’ home in Marshalltown. The body of water depicted in the colourful composition is St. Mary’s Bay, an arm of the Bay of Fundy. On the far side is Weymouth and mainland Nova Scotia. The Sandy Cove subject is one of the few serial images which the artist would return to at times over three decades. Maud Lewis scholar, Alan Deacon believes that this artwork was likely painted in early 1965 and notes that the “M. Lewis” signature is the rarest of three personalized inscriptions we encounter with the work of the painter.
Started by Robert W. Marshall, Shortliffe’s Riteway grocery store operated in Digby, Nova Scotia and served Maud and Everett Lewis. Everett would visit the store and shop for groceries and the Marshall family would then deliver the Lewis’ purchases to their famed home. Maud Lewis would sometimes provide the family with one of her paintings as a tip for their service and the Marshall family at one point had more than 15 of her works in their collection. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the grocery store in December of 1971, along with the majority of the artworks. Only two of the paintings survived, and this is one of those works, being sold by the family of Robert Marshall.
We extend our thanks to Alan Deacon for assisting with the research and cataloguing of this artwork.
