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Lot Essay
The present drawing relates to a composition that Moore worked on in 1891, but was never fully completed. A life-size cartoon exists in the Victoria & Albert Museum, but ill-health prevented Moore from developing the picture further. Its vivid and energetic use of the medium contrasts boldly with the delicate brown paper, and Asleson comments that 'the provocative pose, inviting gaze and nuanced light and shadow are without precedent in his art, and would have made an astonishing addition to his oeuvre' (R. Asleson, op. cit., p. 195).
The first two drawings in this sale at one time belonged to the fabric manufacturer and retailer Sir Arthur John Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917). Leaving school at sixteen Liberty began work in a relative's lace warehouse before moving to London to run Farmer & Roger's oriental warehouse in Regent Street, a leading retailer for goods from the Far East. In 1875 he set up his own business, initially called East India House and which, in 1882 expanded into the site where his Liberty department store still stands today.
From early on in his career Liberty came into close contact with artists such as Moore, Whistler, Leighton, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, who were drawn to the exotic textiles and artefacts. In an article in the Daily Chronicle Liberty said that 'The soft, delicate coloured fabrics of the East particularly attracted these artists because they could get nothing of European make that would drape properly (on their artist's models) and which was of sufficiently well-balanced colouring to satisfy the eye....Albert Moore found them so helpful that he gave me a beautiful drawing of a group of classical figures holding up some of these draperies'. Moore formed a working collection of fabrics and needlework, and the influence of this is clearly evident in works such as Dancing Girl Resting (1863-4, Private Collection), Marigolds (1877, Private Collection) and Sapphires (1877, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery).
The first two drawings in this sale at one time belonged to the fabric manufacturer and retailer Sir Arthur John Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917). Leaving school at sixteen Liberty began work in a relative's lace warehouse before moving to London to run Farmer & Roger's oriental warehouse in Regent Street, a leading retailer for goods from the Far East. In 1875 he set up his own business, initially called East India House and which, in 1882 expanded into the site where his Liberty department store still stands today.
From early on in his career Liberty came into close contact with artists such as Moore, Whistler, Leighton, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, who were drawn to the exotic textiles and artefacts. In an article in the Daily Chronicle Liberty said that 'The soft, delicate coloured fabrics of the East particularly attracted these artists because they could get nothing of European make that would drape properly (on their artist's models) and which was of sufficiently well-balanced colouring to satisfy the eye....Albert Moore found them so helpful that he gave me a beautiful drawing of a group of classical figures holding up some of these draperies'. Moore formed a working collection of fabrics and needlework, and the influence of this is clearly evident in works such as Dancing Girl Resting (1863-4, Private Collection), Marigolds (1877, Private Collection) and Sapphires (1877, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery).