An old walled-in moat

Lilian Stannard was the daughter of Henry Stannard and sister of Henry John Sylvester Stannard (see lot 131), Alexander M. Stannard, and Ivy Stannard. Many other members of her family, who came from Bedfordshire, were also artists. Lilian became a celebrated painter of English gardens. She held several exhibitions at Arthur Ackermann's between 1914 and 1939, and also showed at the Royal Academy and the Royal Institue of Painters in Watercolours. Reviewing her exhibition of 1906 at the Mendoza Gallery, the art ciritic of the Observer commented: 'I defy any lover of an old-fashioned English garden to see these drawings without real delight. There is a peace, a repose, almost a fragrance about each and all of them'.