One of only three pictures exhibited by Moore in 1883 (when he showed nothing at the Academy or the Grosvenor), Companions develops a composition that he had first adopted in Topaz, a picture exhibited at the Grosvenor in 1879. In turn, at least two other works were based on Companions: a watercolour version of the same title but with a different colour scheme, exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1885 and now possibly in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and Ivory Beads, a smaller oil of 1883 containing a single figure.

Moore derived most of his decorative devices from close observation of nature, and he claimed that the filigree patterns of light created by dark foliage seen against a pale sky gave him the idea of laying a tracery of white lace over dark drapery in Companions. The motif was repeated in several subsequent paintings of the late 1880s.

A.L. Baldry discussed the picture at some length in his biography of Moore (1894). 'This picture', he wrote, 'is particularly characteristic, one of the best of his smaller works, and a fascinating example of the manner in which he would treat masses of detail without losing breath and simplicity' (op.cit, p.54). The picture was also one of those singled out by the Art Journal, in a review of the artist's memorial exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1894, as an example of 'his best work [which] was done during the decade that ended in 1888'.

We are grateful to Robyn Asleson for her help in preparing this entry.