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33 Régates à Henley, c.1933 Signed lower right 'Raoul Dufy' Oil on canvas 14 7/8 x 18 in, 37.8 x 45.7 cm Provenance Perls Galleries, New York Private collection (acquired by 1970) Private collection Literature Geneva, M. Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Tome II, 1973, p.381, no.912 (illus.) During the 1930s Dufy made several trips to England where he eagerly studied the regattas at Cowes and Henley as well as the aristocracy at play. These included several views of the Changing of the Guard at St James's Palace as well as the jubilant coronation of King George VI. Pierre Courthion was particularly struck by Dufy's love of British society and the Royal Family, which he described: 'He loved England – English correctness and English customs, English club life, sport and traditions…he told me shortly before he died that his greatest pleasure would have been to go to London and make studies of the various phases of Queen Elizabeth's Coronation'. In La régate à Henley and Régates à Henley, Dufy records the glamorous event of the Henley Royal Regatta in Oxfordshire, which began in 1839 and became instantly popular with the fashionable elite. In the bustling scene of La régate à Henley Dufy is particularly focused upon on the throng of spectators along the river bank and the muscular forms of the rowers themselves. Playfully depicted just after a race, the athletes are shown lying languorously on the ground or clasping their oars as other boats glide past the semidetached rows of the houses beyond. Régates à Henley is taken from a series of works, an example of which can now be found at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, that in turn offer a parallel view of the race. This composition emphasises Dufy's daring sense of design as half of the picture plane is dominated by three blowing Union Jack flags.