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Lot Essay
This is one of two similar works of the same model. In the other (Mildura Arts Centre, Australia) she is on a balcony with a rail in front of her. The most likely influence for both seems to be Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) with Orpen possibly using works such as Majas on a Balcony (1808-1812, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), The Countess of Chinchon (1800, Suevea Collection, Madrid) and Josepha de Goya (c.1805, Prado, Madrid), as references, to give them an overall 'Goya' feel. Such pastiches should not necessarily be considered as anathemas, as the practice is itself an established tradition of Western Art, employed by some of its greatest exponents down the years. It is an acknowledgement of the debt that artists owe to their predecessors whilst signifying continuity of development. One such exponent, and a great influence for Orpen, was Edouard Manet (1832-1883). Many such examples can be found in his work, which also shows the strong influence of Goya and Velasquez (compare for instance Goya's Majas on a Balcony with Manet's The Balcony (1868-9, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Orpen may have been simply emulating what Manet and other great artists had done before him.
As Orpen did not sell either of the pictures, they were probably done for his own amusement and pleasure, rather than for commercial gain; perhaps being more in Goya's style than his own. Also it is more likely that the models were friends rather than professional models or commissions. The provenance is largely known for both works, the Mildura version being still in the artist's possession at the time of his death, and this version was given to Mrs. St. George.
Orpen visited Madrid in September 1904, with his friend and art dealer Sir Hugh Lane as part of a continental tour for Lane to buy paintings. He wrote to Grace, his wife, from Madrid saying how he visited the Prado, stating, 'I am learning so much of Velasquez and Goya that I am nearly off my head with excitement'. Certainly there are a number of pictures signed and dated 1905, that seemed to show the influence of the Spanish Masters. These include another set of two studies, one of which is dated 1905, and the model has been identified as Anita Bartle, later Brackenbury. One of the pair was given to Anita as a wedding present and full provenance for other has not been established. The wedding present (sold in these rooms on 9 May 1996 as lot 108) is somewhat reminiscent of another Goya work Portrait of Dona Isabel Cobos de Porcel (1806, National Gallery, London). This work probably dates to about this time.
It has been suggested that the model may have been Queenie Greenwood. However it is more likely this has been confused with a work with a similar title A Spanish Dancer, in which Queenie is known to be the model. However there is a strong but uncorroborated suggestion that the model is Cara Copland, the 'shadowy' woman (as Bruce Arnold (Mirror to an Age, London, 1981, pp. 180-1, 424) puts it) who was to play a major part in Orpen's last years. From the late 1920s until his death she looked after his affairs, and she was the first person to attempt a catalogue of Orpen's work in 1932. The list of works that forms an appendix of Orpen's paintings (in P.G. Konody and S. Dark, William Orpen: Artist and Man, London, 1933, pp.265-88) was based largely on this catalogue. If it is Cara Copland depicted, this work gives an important new slant on the artist's relationship with Cora, knowing her from many years before she looked after his affairs in the 1920s'.
As Orpen did not sell either of the pictures, they were probably done for his own amusement and pleasure, rather than for commercial gain; perhaps being more in Goya's style than his own. Also it is more likely that the models were friends rather than professional models or commissions. The provenance is largely known for both works, the Mildura version being still in the artist's possession at the time of his death, and this version was given to Mrs. St. George.
Orpen visited Madrid in September 1904, with his friend and art dealer Sir Hugh Lane as part of a continental tour for Lane to buy paintings. He wrote to Grace, his wife, from Madrid saying how he visited the Prado, stating, 'I am learning so much of Velasquez and Goya that I am nearly off my head with excitement'. Certainly there are a number of pictures signed and dated 1905, that seemed to show the influence of the Spanish Masters. These include another set of two studies, one of which is dated 1905, and the model has been identified as Anita Bartle, later Brackenbury. One of the pair was given to Anita as a wedding present and full provenance for other has not been established. The wedding present (sold in these rooms on 9 May 1996 as lot 108) is somewhat reminiscent of another Goya work Portrait of Dona Isabel Cobos de Porcel (1806, National Gallery, London). This work probably dates to about this time.
It has been suggested that the model may have been Queenie Greenwood. However it is more likely this has been confused with a work with a similar title A Spanish Dancer, in which Queenie is known to be the model. However there is a strong but uncorroborated suggestion that the model is Cara Copland, the 'shadowy' woman (as Bruce Arnold (Mirror to an Age, London, 1981, pp. 180-1, 424) puts it) who was to play a major part in Orpen's last years. From the late 1920s until his death she looked after his affairs, and she was the first person to attempt a catalogue of Orpen's work in 1932. The list of works that forms an appendix of Orpen's paintings (in P.G. Konody and S. Dark, William Orpen: Artist and Man, London, 1933, pp.265-88) was based largely on this catalogue. If it is Cara Copland depicted, this work gives an important new slant on the artist's relationship with Cora, knowing her from many years before she looked after his affairs in the 1920s'.