Lot Essay
This drawing is a study for A Garden, executed in 1869 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1870 (no.966) (Alfred Lys Baldry, Albert Moore: His Life and Works, 1894, p. 20, illustrated). Baldry suggests that Moore was much inspired in this work by his designs of 1869 for mosaic panels for the Central Hall, Houses of Parliament (never carried out op.cit., p. 38, illustrated). A Garden was sold at Sotheby's Belgravia on 1 October 1979, lot 42, from the collection of Alexander Henderson, first Lord Faringdon, and is now in the Tate Gallery. Two cartoons for the picture, one showing the figure nude and pricked for transfer to the canvas, are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Albert Moore and his Contemporaries, exh. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1972, no. 28).