Helen Allingham visited several remote villages in Wiltshire and Berkshire between 1907 and 1914, specifically to paint thatched buildings which were becoming a rare sight in other parts of the country. There the majority of farmhouses and cottages were owned by large estates and in most cases had remained virtually unchanged for centuries.

This unfinished watercolour perfectly demonstrates Helen's preference for painting her subject 'direct from nature'. It was the only method by which she could capture such a true likeness - at a later date Helen would complete the figures and plants in her studio. Although painting continued to be very much part of Helen's daily routine, even until the day she died, it was at this time that she was editing her late husband's diaries and publishing his letters and poems.

When winding up his mother's estate in 1926, Gerald Carlyle Allingham, Helen's eldest son distributed these unfinished paintings among his mother's numerous cousins or to close friends. It is interesting that the paintings that still remain in those families tend to be ones of thatched buildings which suggest that from the First World War onwards, Helen realised that her once sought-after cottage painting no longer held the same appeal to a new generation.

We are grateful to Annabel Watts for her help in preparing this entry.