`Veules les Roses, Normandy` 
Ada Dressler 1903 
A Lovely Impressionist watercolour by Ada Dressler depicting the shoreline at Veules les Roses on the Normandy coast. The vertical lines in the painting are not the masts of boats (as I first thought) but the stakes of a fish weir, which is a kind of primitive device for catching fish as the tide goes out. There is a well known painting by American impressionist painter Theodore Earl Butler painted only two years later in 1905 of almost the same view. One is tempted to speculate whether they knew each other -since Veules was a mecca for artists at the time. Ada Dresslers brother was Conrad Dressler, a well known Sculptor who had good society connections. He had commissions from the English Royal family and was a friend of Ruskin, William Morris and Singer Sargent. Many famous artists of the time spent the summer here, Monet and the French impressionists, the Russian impressionists, and Scottish Colourist artists such as Duncan Fergusson and Samuel Peploe. Theodore Earl Butler (1861-1936) was of course notable for being Claude Monets son-in-law, in fact he married one of Monets stepdaughters, and when she died he later married her sister! They spent a lot of time here -keeping a summer residence. Ada Dressler was in fact an accomplished painter and sculptor in her own right, exhibiting 2 paintings and a sculpture at the Royal Academy between 1892 and 1918. Painting is housed in a period ornate swept frame with ingres mount- refinished in our usual National trust approved satin gilt .