Lot Essay
Mrs Rochester is the deranged first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Bront's 'Jane Eyre'. Discussing this subject, the artist commented 'I thought of that woman all alone in her room high up in the house. A tragic figure, sitting quite still, as mad people do very often. The colours are very intense - pitch black, for instance, against very light tones. But I used a wide range, rather like a pianist using the whole stretch of the keyboard. It's very consciously constructed in a geometric way, like an abstract picture'. (see R.V Weight, loc. cit.)