Winter: A Study of a Sleigh

A smaller version of the artist's Royal Academy exhibit of 1881, no. 594, which was sold in Christie's London, on 6 November 1995, for £20,000. The larger work was included in Royal Academy Notes, 1881, p. 62 (illustrated), and was reviewed by F.G. Stephens in the Athenaeum, 2796, 28 May 1881, p. 726. 'Mrs Tadema's Winter' he wrote, 'is a powerfully illuminated and coloured snow-piece, where a little boy drives a little girl in a Dutch sledge. It is marked by good and truthful colouring, and right adjustment of the tones of the sledge and the snow.' Alice Meynell described and reproduced the picture in her article on Laura Alma-Tadema published in the Art Journal 1883, p. 346, illustrated. 'In Winter ... we have the variety of outdoor life; but even here the Dutch child keeps her little matronly air of dignity; she is enfolded in the neatest wraps, and her doll shares the demure delight of a ride in the carved sledge'.

We are grateful to Dr. Vern G. Swanson of Springville Museum of Art, Utah, for his help in preparing this entry.