Lot Essay
The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and belongs to the early period of Waterhouse's career when he was much influenced by Alma-Tadema. A Flower Stall in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, and Dolce Far Niente in the Art Gallery at Kirkcaldy, both date from the same year. The phase reached a climax in Diogenes (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), shown at the RA in 1882. After this new elements entered Waterhouse's work, pointing the way to his later exploration of the world of poetry and legend.
The picture was acquired by Sir John Aird (1833-1911), probably direct from the artist. Aird was a wealthy contractor whose first major enterprise had been to move the Crystal Palace, erected by his father, to Sydenham. He had built up the family firm on an international basis, and was associated at one point with Sir Morton Peto and Edward Ladd Betts, who have featured in these catalogues recently in connection with Landseer's Scene in Braemar (sold in London, 25 March 1994, lot 85). In the early 1890s he was responsible for completing the Manchester Ship Canal, but his greatest achievement was to dam the Nile at Aswan (1898-1902), a project on which 20,000 men were employed. He represented North Paddington in the Conservative interest 1887-1905, and was the first Mayor of Paddington 1900-1. Lord Salisbury made him a baronet in 1901.
Aird began to collect in 1874 when he moved from Tunbridge Wells to 14 Hyde Park Terrace in London, and was soon to build up one of the finest late Victorian collections of modern British pictures. Although he owned one early Rossetti watercolour, Giotto painting the Portrait of Dante, his main interest was in major academic works, often ones which had caused a sensation at the Royal Academy or the Grosvenor Gallery. Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Marcus Stone, Luke Fildes, Orchardson, Dicksee, Calderon and many others were represented. Christie's have sold two outstanding examples in recent years: Venetian Life by Fildes, exhibited at the RA in 1884 (London, 24 November 1989, lot 91), and Alma-Tadema's Roses of Heliogabalus from the RA of 1888 (London, 11 June 1993, lot 101), which was regarded in its day as 'the chef d'oeuvre of the collection.'
According to the article on Aird's collection published in the Art Journal in 1891, Waterhouse's Household Gods was one of two early works by the artist which hung 'on either side of the large folding doors' in a first-floor drawing-room overlooking the Park at 14 Hyde Park Terrace. In the same room were Fildes's Venetian Life, the Rossetti watercolour, and works by Stone, Hallé, Clara Montalba, Stacy Marks, Frith and others. The companion picture was Whispered Words, another work in the Alma-Tadema style of a Greek girl and her lover, exhibited at the RA in 1875. This is now missing, but the composition is known from the engraving in Henry Blackburn's catalogue of the collection, published privately in 1884 (see Hobson, op.cit., p.28, pl.17).
The picture was acquired by Sir John Aird (1833-1911), probably direct from the artist. Aird was a wealthy contractor whose first major enterprise had been to move the Crystal Palace, erected by his father, to Sydenham. He had built up the family firm on an international basis, and was associated at one point with Sir Morton Peto and Edward Ladd Betts, who have featured in these catalogues recently in connection with Landseer's Scene in Braemar (sold in London, 25 March 1994, lot 85). In the early 1890s he was responsible for completing the Manchester Ship Canal, but his greatest achievement was to dam the Nile at Aswan (1898-1902), a project on which 20,000 men were employed. He represented North Paddington in the Conservative interest 1887-1905, and was the first Mayor of Paddington 1900-1. Lord Salisbury made him a baronet in 1901.
Aird began to collect in 1874 when he moved from Tunbridge Wells to 14 Hyde Park Terrace in London, and was soon to build up one of the finest late Victorian collections of modern British pictures. Although he owned one early Rossetti watercolour, Giotto painting the Portrait of Dante, his main interest was in major academic works, often ones which had caused a sensation at the Royal Academy or the Grosvenor Gallery. Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Marcus Stone, Luke Fildes, Orchardson, Dicksee, Calderon and many others were represented. Christie's have sold two outstanding examples in recent years: Venetian Life by Fildes, exhibited at the RA in 1884 (London, 24 November 1989, lot 91), and Alma-Tadema's Roses of Heliogabalus from the RA of 1888 (London, 11 June 1993, lot 101), which was regarded in its day as 'the chef d'oeuvre of the collection.'
According to the article on Aird's collection published in the Art Journal in 1891, Waterhouse's Household Gods was one of two early works by the artist which hung 'on either side of the large folding doors' in a first-floor drawing-room overlooking the Park at 14 Hyde Park Terrace. In the same room were Fildes's Venetian Life, the Rossetti watercolour, and works by Stone, Hallé, Clara Montalba, Stacy Marks, Frith and others. The companion picture was Whispered Words, another work in the Alma-Tadema style of a Greek girl and her lover, exhibited at the RA in 1875. This is now missing, but the composition is known from the engraving in Henry Blackburn's catalogue of the collection, published privately in 1884 (see Hobson, op.cit., p.28, pl.17).