.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Looking back on the late Victorian years when he was deeply embedded in the countryside, George Clausen recalled the thrill of seeing ‘… people doing simple things under good conditions of lighting …’ ‘Nothing’ he adds, ‘was made easy for you …’ The powerful moral driver behind his work was to represent country folk and ways of life that were being savagely eroded by the inexorable tide of industrialisation (G. Clausen, ‘Autobiographical Notes’, Artwork, no 25, Spring 1931, p. 19). At a time when rural labourers were increasingly drawn to wage-slavery in towns and cities, Parliament was belatedly debating legislation compelling local authorities to supply ‘field gardens’ and allotments as a way of retaining a depleted population on the land.
After leaving London for Hertfordshire in 1881, rustic families and field gangs became Clausen’s essential subject, and for him, an anonymous country child was more worthy of representation than one brought up to expect middle class comforts. The painter was never entirely sanguine on those few occasions when called upon for commissioned portraits. An instance must have been fresh in his mind in 1897 when the present canvas was painted. In the previous year he had agreed to paint the fifteen-year-old Margaret Hilton Smith, (fig 1) his doctor’s daughter, and found himself having to explain at some length, why he did not wish to exhibit the painting.
Aesthetically, it was not his forte, and he had no wish to indicate to others that he might be available for such tasks. A painter, he told Margaret’s mother, was his ‘own judge’ and now as an Associate of the Royal Academy, ‘having the right to exhibit what I choose makes me much more critical’ (K. McConkey, George Clausen and the Picture of English Rural Life, 2012, p. 117).
Clausen had grown up in an era of utopian Socialism, dominated by William Morris. Illustrated papers of his youth, like The Graphic, contained quasi-sociological series such as the ‘Heads of the People’, that featured a typical miner, coastguardsman, fireman, agricultural labourer and others. The idea of ‘the people’ was a powerful one, and although each face was individual, names and places of work were of less importance than social type. Initially the painter took his cue from the Naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage, the French painter whose objectivity he admired. ‘All his [Lepage’s] personages’, Clausen wrote, ‘are placed before us in the most satisfying completeness, without the appearance of artifice, but as they live …’ – documentary qualities that are evident in the present work (G. Clausen, ‘Bastien-Lepage and Modern Realism’, Scottish Art Review, vol 1, 1888, p. 114).
A few of the artist’s models are identified by name in his account books, and there is no doubt that in extant head studies, they were all ‘real’ and not romantic evocations. Conventional prettiness and coy, ‘come hither’ looks were to be avoided. Thus, The Little Maid forms part of an important sequence that stretches back to earlier days and one that continued until 1904 when, appointed Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy Schools, he was compelled to move back to the metropolis. Painted mostly in the open air, and often no more than 50 cm high, these works were an essential underpinning for larger, multi-figure mowing and harvesting compositions. Early works such as A Straw Plaiter, 1883 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and Farmer’s Boy, 1884 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) were painted in the Lepage manner, while those produced in the Edwardian years such as A Village Woman 1904 (Manchester City Art Gallery) reflect Clausen’s engagement with Impressionism (K. McConkey 2012, pp. 79, 87, 116-7). In the mid-1890s, after his move to Widdington in Essex, housemaids’ activities caught his attention in works such as The Bread, 1893 and A Cottage Girl, 1895 (both Private Collections) and in one instance, a canvas initially entitled, Pensive 1895 (Private Collection) but re-named Cinderella, may well have begun life as a study of the present girl (Ibid, p. 117, illustrated), 118. A helpful note that accompanies the work in the artist’s account book, identifies the model as Lizzie Deller.
Whether the case for Miss Deller as model for the present canvas can or cannot be proven, must remain conjecture. A lost work, Clausen’s title, The Little Maid, can be adopted in the absence of other possible contenders at this point in his career. Certain facts about her lot in life may nevertheless be stated. The Education Act of 1891, for instance, brought free compulsory school attendance to all children up to the age of eleven, rising within one or two years to thirteen. A cottage girl in the Home Counties, having acquired basic domestic skills from her mother, could, if fortunate, escape overcrowded living conditions by going into service in the house of ‘one of the modern class of farmers’. Here she would be clothed and fed and learn ‘the mystery of butter and cheese’, while helping in the cowshed or in the fields at harvest times, before graduating to the role of housemaid. While the expensive plate on display behind her in the present picture suggests that she is not at the commencement of her service career, there are peaks and pitfalls ahead. With experience she might move on to a tradesman’s house in the local town or nearby city, if not arrested by unwanted pregnancy and early marriage – incidents of which were extremely high in many parishes (R. Jefferies, The Toilers of the Field, 1892 (Futura ed., 1981), pp. 96-106).
Socially conscious collectors, a number of whom in Clausen’s case were progressive members of Parliament, would find appeal in such a work. With this in mind, The Little Maid is listed as part of a transaction that took place on 26 October 1897 involving four works. This occurred during the annual visit of David Croal Thomson, Clausen’s dealer, and manager of the Goupil Gallery. Although shortly to leave the company, as a friend of ten years standing, Thomson remained one of the artist’s most consistent supporters and his selection on that day, confirms the desirability of the little painting.
Ultimately, for the artist, these neighbours from the surrounding cottages were more than social types. Innocence, modesty, reticence and that complex sense of ‘becoming’, but not yet ‘arrived’, are imprinted on the faces of his country children. They are neither Greek goddesses nor Gothic temptresses. Placed on canvas, they reached out to him as much as they do to us.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
After leaving London for Hertfordshire in 1881, rustic families and field gangs became Clausen’s essential subject, and for him, an anonymous country child was more worthy of representation than one brought up to expect middle class comforts. The painter was never entirely sanguine on those few occasions when called upon for commissioned portraits. An instance must have been fresh in his mind in 1897 when the present canvas was painted. In the previous year he had agreed to paint the fifteen-year-old Margaret Hilton Smith, (fig 1) his doctor’s daughter, and found himself having to explain at some length, why he did not wish to exhibit the painting.
Aesthetically, it was not his forte, and he had no wish to indicate to others that he might be available for such tasks. A painter, he told Margaret’s mother, was his ‘own judge’ and now as an Associate of the Royal Academy, ‘having the right to exhibit what I choose makes me much more critical’ (K. McConkey, George Clausen and the Picture of English Rural Life, 2012, p. 117).
Clausen had grown up in an era of utopian Socialism, dominated by William Morris. Illustrated papers of his youth, like The Graphic, contained quasi-sociological series such as the ‘Heads of the People’, that featured a typical miner, coastguardsman, fireman, agricultural labourer and others. The idea of ‘the people’ was a powerful one, and although each face was individual, names and places of work were of less importance than social type. Initially the painter took his cue from the Naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage, the French painter whose objectivity he admired. ‘All his [Lepage’s] personages’, Clausen wrote, ‘are placed before us in the most satisfying completeness, without the appearance of artifice, but as they live …’ – documentary qualities that are evident in the present work (G. Clausen, ‘Bastien-Lepage and Modern Realism’, Scottish Art Review, vol 1, 1888, p. 114).
A few of the artist’s models are identified by name in his account books, and there is no doubt that in extant head studies, they were all ‘real’ and not romantic evocations. Conventional prettiness and coy, ‘come hither’ looks were to be avoided. Thus, The Little Maid forms part of an important sequence that stretches back to earlier days and one that continued until 1904 when, appointed Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy Schools, he was compelled to move back to the metropolis. Painted mostly in the open air, and often no more than 50 cm high, these works were an essential underpinning for larger, multi-figure mowing and harvesting compositions. Early works such as A Straw Plaiter, 1883 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and Farmer’s Boy, 1884 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) were painted in the Lepage manner, while those produced in the Edwardian years such as A Village Woman 1904 (Manchester City Art Gallery) reflect Clausen’s engagement with Impressionism (K. McConkey 2012, pp. 79, 87, 116-7). In the mid-1890s, after his move to Widdington in Essex, housemaids’ activities caught his attention in works such as The Bread, 1893 and A Cottage Girl, 1895 (both Private Collections) and in one instance, a canvas initially entitled, Pensive 1895 (Private Collection) but re-named Cinderella, may well have begun life as a study of the present girl (Ibid, p. 117, illustrated), 118. A helpful note that accompanies the work in the artist’s account book, identifies the model as Lizzie Deller.
Whether the case for Miss Deller as model for the present canvas can or cannot be proven, must remain conjecture. A lost work, Clausen’s title, The Little Maid, can be adopted in the absence of other possible contenders at this point in his career. Certain facts about her lot in life may nevertheless be stated. The Education Act of 1891, for instance, brought free compulsory school attendance to all children up to the age of eleven, rising within one or two years to thirteen. A cottage girl in the Home Counties, having acquired basic domestic skills from her mother, could, if fortunate, escape overcrowded living conditions by going into service in the house of ‘one of the modern class of farmers’. Here she would be clothed and fed and learn ‘the mystery of butter and cheese’, while helping in the cowshed or in the fields at harvest times, before graduating to the role of housemaid. While the expensive plate on display behind her in the present picture suggests that she is not at the commencement of her service career, there are peaks and pitfalls ahead. With experience she might move on to a tradesman’s house in the local town or nearby city, if not arrested by unwanted pregnancy and early marriage – incidents of which were extremely high in many parishes (R. Jefferies, The Toilers of the Field, 1892 (Futura ed., 1981), pp. 96-106).
Socially conscious collectors, a number of whom in Clausen’s case were progressive members of Parliament, would find appeal in such a work. With this in mind, The Little Maid is listed as part of a transaction that took place on 26 October 1897 involving four works. This occurred during the annual visit of David Croal Thomson, Clausen’s dealer, and manager of the Goupil Gallery. Although shortly to leave the company, as a friend of ten years standing, Thomson remained one of the artist’s most consistent supporters and his selection on that day, confirms the desirability of the little painting.
Ultimately, for the artist, these neighbours from the surrounding cottages were more than social types. Innocence, modesty, reticence and that complex sense of ‘becoming’, but not yet ‘arrived’, are imprinted on the faces of his country children. They are neither Greek goddesses nor Gothic temptresses. Placed on canvas, they reached out to him as much as they do to us.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.