A mother and child in a kitchen

This recently rediscovered work appears to have been painted between Laura and Harold Knight's first trip to Laren, Holland, in 1905, and their leaving Yorkshire to move to Cornwall in 1908. After their wedding in 1903, the Knights generally stayed with a Mrs Bowman when returning to the Staithes area in Yorkshire and in between visits to Laren. She lived in nearby Roxby, and the couple would walk over the fields every day down to Staithes, where they had their studios. Laura painted several oils similar in style to A mother and child in a kitchen, using Mrs Bowman's cottage interior as a background. A similar work, Dressing the Children was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1906, and is now held at The Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. Both show some Dutch influence, gained from the Knight's trips to Laren. Laura painted several works while in Staithes, subjects ranging from old women in interiors performing simple household tasks such as knitting, peeling potatoes and plucking geese, to children playing on the beach. Most of these works show careful observation and understanding. As Laura observed in her autobiography:

'It was [at Staithes] that I found myself and what I might do. The life and the place were what I yearned for - the freedom, the austerity, the savagery and the wildness. I loved it passionately, overwhelmingly; I loved the cold and the northerly storms when no covering would protect you. I loved the strange race of people who lived there...'

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