Three Girls and a Dog

The present work forms part of a commission for C.K. Butler (later Sir Cyril Butler) for the dining room at Bourton House, Shrivenham, Berkshire. Butler had been an important collector of Steer's work from 1897 and it was probably his taste which inspired an 'anglicized revival of French rococo style'. The theme at Bourton House is three young girls enjoying a kind of perpetual summer holiday in the open air. The sentiment is nostalgic in the extreme, and colour and paint handling is appropiate to this. The dangerous technique of glazing cool over warm colour is carried off perfectly. The result is a suggestion of place-memory which is not in any way precise.
(see B. Laughton, op. cit., p.77).