Lot Essay
This is a highly-finished watercolour version of Gregory's Royal Academy Diploma work, exhibited at the R.A. in 1900 (see Paintings and Sculptures in the Diploma and Gibson Galleries, 1931, pl. 88). There are some significant differences; in the Diploma picture the curtain and doorway do not appear in the background, the stool under the girl's foot is of different design, and the floor-boards run diagonally in the opposite direction. The model appears in other works by Gregory, including a similar composition entitled The Lute Player (photo in Witt Library).
Gregory is best known today as the painter of Boulter's Lock: Sunday Afternoon (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), which secured his full membership of the R.A. when exhibited there in 1898. The grandson of John Gregory, engineer-in-chief to Sir John Franklin's last and fatal Arctic expedition, he was born in Southampton and in 1869 accompanied his friend Hubert von Herkomer to London, where he studied briefly at the South Kensington and R.A. Schools. In the 1870s he was employed on the decoration of the South Kensington (Victoria and Albert Museum and worked as an illustrator on the Graphic, while making his name as a painter of genre subjects and portraits. He exhibited at the R.A. (1875-1903), the Grosvenor Gallery and the Institute of Painters in Watercolours, of which he was President from 1898 until his death; and was awarded medals at international exhibitions in Paris (1889, 1900), Munich (1891) and Brussels (1898). His portrait of Mabel Galloway, daughter of Charles Galloway, his principal patron, was sold in these Rooms on 13 November 1992, lot 11
Gregory is best known today as the painter of Boulter's Lock: Sunday Afternoon (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), which secured his full membership of the R.A. when exhibited there in 1898. The grandson of John Gregory, engineer-in-chief to Sir John Franklin's last and fatal Arctic expedition, he was born in Southampton and in 1869 accompanied his friend Hubert von Herkomer to London, where he studied briefly at the South Kensington and R.A. Schools. In the 1870s he was employed on the decoration of the South Kensington (Victoria and Albert Museum and worked as an illustrator on the Graphic, while making his name as a painter of genre subjects and portraits. He exhibited at the R.A. (1875-1903), the Grosvenor Gallery and the Institute of Painters in Watercolours, of which he was President from 1898 until his death; and was awarded medals at international exhibitions in Paris (1889, 1900), Munich (1891) and Brussels (1898). His portrait of Mabel Galloway, daughter of Charles Galloway, his principal patron, was sold in these Rooms on 13 November 1992, lot 11