Dame Laura Knight, R.A. (1877-1970)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more
Dame Laura Knight, R.A. (1877-1970)

Gypsies at Home

Details
Dame Laura Knight, R.A. (1877-1970)
Gypsies at Home
signed 'Laura Knight' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 38 in. (76.2 x 96.5 cm.)
Provenance
with The Leicester Galleries, April 1939, no. 40.
with Richard Green, London.
Literature
The Studio, May 1939, p. 235.
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Clare Keiller
Clare Keiller

Lot Essay

Knight first became fascinated by gypsies at Ascot race meetings where, for many years, she drew and painted them from the comfort of a shining Rolls Royce; 'This Royal meeting was a special occasion for the gipsies [sic.]; they came in their bright satin gala dresses, hair elaborately arranged with curls soaped to their cheeks, their sharp black eyes alert for police as they made a round of parked cars which had passengers standing on top. Out came a crystal from a hidden pocket, and a wheedling voice offered to tell fortunes - forbidden by law. They never bothered Laura at her easel in the Rolls; she was a source of money in another way, for now she asked gipsies [sic.] of different ages to pose for her, and paid them. More important still, they knew that she liked and admired Romany folk' (J. Dunbar, Laura Knight, 1975, p. 143). The gypsies liked Knight so much that they invited her to paint them in the privacy of their camp on the Common at Iver in Buckinghamshire and it was probably here that she painted this work.

We are grateful to John Croft, F.C.A., the artist's great nephew, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry. The picture will appear in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Dame Laura Knight.

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