Lot Essay
This charming and beautifully preserved picture shows Kathleen Newton, Tissot's mistress and muse during his later London years (1876-82), and her niece, Lilian Hervey; the setting is the garden of the house which she shared with the artist, 17 Grove End Road, St. John's Wood, in north London. The picture is a major rediscovery, the only record of it being an image (under a different title, Le Conte) in one of the albums in which Tissot kept a photographic record of his work (Misfeldt, loc.cit). The label on the back suggests that it was no.3 in some exhibition, but this has not been identified.
A well-known canvas entitled Quiet (private collection, Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 1984, pl.169) was exhibited by Tissot at the Royal Academy in 1881. This is considerably larger and more complex, both compositionally and psychologically, than the present work. The motif is essentially the same but the artist has taken a viewpoint from the other side of the bench so that the sitters face the spectator. Mrs Newton still holds a book but no longer reads it aloud; the child sprawls in a bored attitude and a dog shares their seat. A replica in watercolour exists in a private collection (James Laver, Vulgar Society, 1936, pl.XXVI) and there is a version, showing Mrs Newton in the same pose but alone, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Dijon.
A version of our picture (private collection) is reproduced in Christopher Wood, Tissot, 1985, p.116, pl.116. Given the title Reading a Story and dated c.1878-9, it is also in oil on panel but is rectangular in format, measuring 7½ x 11in. The curtain of chestnut leaves in the upper portion is reduced to a shallow fringe; the circular pond in the middle distance is simplified, losing the pots of geraniums on the far side which add such an essential note of colour to our version; and the back of the bench in the foreground is pared down to a narrow band, with the leopard skin thrown over it assuming less complex shapes. All this subtly alters the mood, but what chiefly varies the tone of the pictures is a radical change in the pose of the child. If she peers over the top of the bench in our version, suggesting that her mother is deep in her book and she herself is getting bored and restive, she faces her mother in profile in the rectangular version, as if listening attentively to a story being read aloud.
One of these versions may well be the picture entitled The Tale which Tissot exhibited with the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1880 (no.256) and again in the autumn exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1882 (no.668), pricing it at (70 on both occasions. As the photograph in his album shows, our picture at least was at one time called The Tale, but this in itself is not enough to establish a connection. Tissot would often change the titles of his pictures from exhibition to exhibition, making identification difficult. Nor is his carnet or account book of help in this instance since it does not record a picture entitiled The Tale or Quiet.
We are grateful to Professor Misfeldt for his help in preparing this entry.
A well-known canvas entitled Quiet (private collection, Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 1984, pl.169) was exhibited by Tissot at the Royal Academy in 1881. This is considerably larger and more complex, both compositionally and psychologically, than the present work. The motif is essentially the same but the artist has taken a viewpoint from the other side of the bench so that the sitters face the spectator. Mrs Newton still holds a book but no longer reads it aloud; the child sprawls in a bored attitude and a dog shares their seat. A replica in watercolour exists in a private collection (James Laver, Vulgar Society, 1936, pl.XXVI) and there is a version, showing Mrs Newton in the same pose but alone, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Dijon.
A version of our picture (private collection) is reproduced in Christopher Wood, Tissot, 1985, p.116, pl.116. Given the title Reading a Story and dated c.1878-9, it is also in oil on panel but is rectangular in format, measuring 7½ x 11in. The curtain of chestnut leaves in the upper portion is reduced to a shallow fringe; the circular pond in the middle distance is simplified, losing the pots of geraniums on the far side which add such an essential note of colour to our version; and the back of the bench in the foreground is pared down to a narrow band, with the leopard skin thrown over it assuming less complex shapes. All this subtly alters the mood, but what chiefly varies the tone of the pictures is a radical change in the pose of the child. If she peers over the top of the bench in our version, suggesting that her mother is deep in her book and she herself is getting bored and restive, she faces her mother in profile in the rectangular version, as if listening attentively to a story being read aloud.
One of these versions may well be the picture entitled The Tale which Tissot exhibited with the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1880 (no.256) and again in the autumn exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1882 (no.668), pricing it at (70 on both occasions. As the photograph in his album shows, our picture at least was at one time called The Tale, but this in itself is not enough to establish a connection. Tissot would often change the titles of his pictures from exhibition to exhibition, making identification difficult. Nor is his carnet or account book of help in this instance since it does not record a picture entitiled The Tale or Quiet.
We are grateful to Professor Misfeldt for his help in preparing this entry.