Lot Essay
Bartlett studied under Gérome in Paris, no doubt in the late 1870s since he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1880. Living at a series of addresses in London and the home counties, he also supported the Society of British Artists and the Grosvenor and New Galleries. He concentrated on genre subjects, often with a strong pastoral or marine element, and he seems to have travelled fairly widely since his paintings include subjects set in Venice, Fontainebleau, Ireland and St Ives. His marine pictures suggest the influence of J.C. Hook or Charles Napier Hemy, while the pastoral ones recall the Barbizon painters and Bastien-Lepage.
Neighbours also betrays his Parisian training, both in technique and certain details, such as the man in a beret and the girl at the shuttered window in the middle distance; indeed the whole picture is perhaps a reminiscence of the artist's student days. It is certainly an early work, painted when he was only twenty-three and having all the feeling of a young man's tour-de-force. Its subject is somewhat unusual for him, although he did return to the theme of an artist's studio in His Last Work, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885. Located, according to a note on an old reproduction in the Witt Library, at Presbyterian House, Towson, Maryland, this shows a group of people viewing the last work of a deceased sculptor, while his wife lays a wreath upon it and his young daughter looks on.
Although our picture was evidently not a gift from Bartlett to Ernest Waterlow, it can be assumed that Waterlow owned it and the two artists may well have been friends. Waterlow was Bartlett's senior by eight years but his work is comparable, many of his landscapes, like Bartlett's, being in the Barbizon tradition. It also seems likely that such an ambitious picture was exhibited, but the venue, if any, has not yet been identified.
Neighbours also betrays his Parisian training, both in technique and certain details, such as the man in a beret and the girl at the shuttered window in the middle distance; indeed the whole picture is perhaps a reminiscence of the artist's student days. It is certainly an early work, painted when he was only twenty-three and having all the feeling of a young man's tour-de-force. Its subject is somewhat unusual for him, although he did return to the theme of an artist's studio in His Last Work, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885. Located, according to a note on an old reproduction in the Witt Library, at Presbyterian House, Towson, Maryland, this shows a group of people viewing the last work of a deceased sculptor, while his wife lays a wreath upon it and his young daughter looks on.
Although our picture was evidently not a gift from Bartlett to Ernest Waterlow, it can be assumed that Waterlow owned it and the two artists may well have been friends. Waterlow was Bartlett's senior by eight years but his work is comparable, many of his landscapes, like Bartlett's, being in the Barbizon tradition. It also seems likely that such an ambitious picture was exhibited, but the venue, if any, has not yet been identified.