拍品專文
Like lot 160, with which it is contemporary (c.1878), this picture is one of many scenes with Thames-side tavern settings which Tissot painted during his years in London. In this case the background is provided by the Falcon Tavern at Gravesend, which appears in two other works of the same title, one of c.1874 (J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville; Wentworth, op.cit., pl.111), the other again contemporary with our picture (private collection; Wentworth, pl.118). There is also a watercolour study of the tavern and riverside, without any figures, in the Museum of London (James Tissot, exh. Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1984, no.112, repr. in cat.). The Falcon Tavern, recorded as early as 1622, was situated in East Street, Gravesend, and was timber fronted, with bay windows reaching over the river and a balcony and bridge between them. During a heavy gale in 1881 the wooden front was washed away, and in 1888 the inn was rebuilt in red brick. It was finally demolished in 1961.
The picture shows Tissot himself with Mrs Newton, her son Cecil George and her neice Lilian Hervey. Two photographs exist which were clearly used in this connection (repr. Barbican exh., 1984, cat. pp.131-2, nos. 145d and 146c; and Wentworth, pl.120), but the sitters are grouped in the garden of Tissot's house, 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood. It is fascinating to see how he has not only transposed them to the Thames-side setting but subtly altered their relationships, poses and expressions to create the mood of psychological tension of which he was so fond. The setting too contributes to this effect. As Michael Wentworth observes, 'the cool greys of the earlier marine pictures are replaced (here) by the sooty lavender and vermillion of polluted skies lurid in the dying light and reflected in oily water, giving the bland subject a strangely menacing overtone.'
The figure of Lilian Hervey was also used for another painting, The Artist, Mrs Newton, and her Neice, Lilian Hervey, by the Thames at Richmond, while that of Cecil George Newton re-appears in a drypoint, Sa première culotte (see Wentworth, p.131, note 12).
The picture shows Tissot himself with Mrs Newton, her son Cecil George and her neice Lilian Hervey. Two photographs exist which were clearly used in this connection (repr. Barbican exh., 1984, cat. pp.131-2, nos. 145d and 146c; and Wentworth, pl.120), but the sitters are grouped in the garden of Tissot's house, 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood. It is fascinating to see how he has not only transposed them to the Thames-side setting but subtly altered their relationships, poses and expressions to create the mood of psychological tension of which he was so fond. The setting too contributes to this effect. As Michael Wentworth observes, 'the cool greys of the earlier marine pictures are replaced (here) by the sooty lavender and vermillion of polluted skies lurid in the dying light and reflected in oily water, giving the bland subject a strangely menacing overtone.'
The figure of Lilian Hervey was also used for another painting, The Artist, Mrs Newton, and her Neice, Lilian Hervey, by the Thames at Richmond, while that of Cecil George Newton re-appears in a drypoint, Sa première culotte (see Wentworth, p.131, note 12).