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拍品专文
A beautiful young woman picking flowers in a garden. This timeless motif is the subject of many vibrant oil paintings created by John William Waterhouse throughout his long career. Among the most famous examples are Ophelia (1894), Flora and the Zephyrs (1897), and Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May (1909).
The present painting is rare because it differs from the others in two ways. First, this young woman wears modern clothing—a hat and dress from Waterhouse’s lifetime, specifically from the 1890s. Second, the artist wrote ‘Croyde’ below his signature—the name of the village in North Devon which he and his artist-wife, Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse, visited often from 1892 onward.
Esther’s younger sister Emily Kenworthy (1859–1917) married Peregrine M. Feeney (1837–1913), an independently wealthy landscape painter and poet who worked in London’s Primrose Hill neighborhood near the studios of J. W. and Esther Waterhouse. In 1892, the Feeneys moved to North Devon, and we know that the Waterhouses continued to visit this scenic village into the 1910s, even after their beloved relatives had relocated to Norfolk.
There is no evidence that this painting was exhibited, and so it may well have been created as a memento of a relaxing holiday in the country. Such charming scenes of English country gardens in modern times—rustic but not shabby, respectable if not impeccably manicured—were championed by Waterhouse’s close friend Ernest Waterlow and other rising Academicians around this time.
There has been speculation that the young woman here is Esther Waterhouse herself, but this seems unlikely as the profile does not match Esther’s, and because Esther (1857–1944) was older than this woman by 1892 (she was then 35). Regardless of whether this girl is a neighbor, friend, or professional model, she epitomizes Waterhouse’s idealized type of feminine beauty with her slim figure, rosy cheeks, and pert nose.
What we can be certain about is the present picture’s impressionistic virtuosity. Fully versed in modern French techniques, Waterhouse probably painted much of it outdoors, reveling in the value shifts between the white sky, walls, and paving stones and the verdant foliage and jewel-like flowers, most of them executed in the lake-based (primarily red and pink) pigments he cherished. In his lively brushwork we glimpse traces of the grasses in his iconic Lady of Shalott (1888, Tate), and the brilliant crimson touches to the right of the model’s body help distinguish her white dress from the white architecture beyond. Particularly French are the mottled grey stones at lower right, scattered on reddish-brown soil that drives our eye upward to the figure and onward to the daringly cropped buildings.
Because this work was not exhibited and did not appear in the large sale of 1926 through which Esther cleared her late husband’s studio, it makes sense to imagine it was acquired by—or given to—Emily and Peregrine Feeney as a reminder of Waterhouse’s happy visits to Croyde. Peregrine died in 1913, and Emily followed him four years later, leaving an impressive sum of £17,386.10s to her younger brother Arthur William Kenworthy. A chartered accountant, he moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, and so this painting has spent much of its life in America rather than Britain.
We are grateful to Peter Trippi for his help in preparing this catalogue entry and for contributing this note.
The present painting is rare because it differs from the others in two ways. First, this young woman wears modern clothing—a hat and dress from Waterhouse’s lifetime, specifically from the 1890s. Second, the artist wrote ‘Croyde’ below his signature—the name of the village in North Devon which he and his artist-wife, Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse, visited often from 1892 onward.
Esther’s younger sister Emily Kenworthy (1859–1917) married Peregrine M. Feeney (1837–1913), an independently wealthy landscape painter and poet who worked in London’s Primrose Hill neighborhood near the studios of J. W. and Esther Waterhouse. In 1892, the Feeneys moved to North Devon, and we know that the Waterhouses continued to visit this scenic village into the 1910s, even after their beloved relatives had relocated to Norfolk.
There is no evidence that this painting was exhibited, and so it may well have been created as a memento of a relaxing holiday in the country. Such charming scenes of English country gardens in modern times—rustic but not shabby, respectable if not impeccably manicured—were championed by Waterhouse’s close friend Ernest Waterlow and other rising Academicians around this time.
There has been speculation that the young woman here is Esther Waterhouse herself, but this seems unlikely as the profile does not match Esther’s, and because Esther (1857–1944) was older than this woman by 1892 (she was then 35). Regardless of whether this girl is a neighbor, friend, or professional model, she epitomizes Waterhouse’s idealized type of feminine beauty with her slim figure, rosy cheeks, and pert nose.
What we can be certain about is the present picture’s impressionistic virtuosity. Fully versed in modern French techniques, Waterhouse probably painted much of it outdoors, reveling in the value shifts between the white sky, walls, and paving stones and the verdant foliage and jewel-like flowers, most of them executed in the lake-based (primarily red and pink) pigments he cherished. In his lively brushwork we glimpse traces of the grasses in his iconic Lady of Shalott (1888, Tate), and the brilliant crimson touches to the right of the model’s body help distinguish her white dress from the white architecture beyond. Particularly French are the mottled grey stones at lower right, scattered on reddish-brown soil that drives our eye upward to the figure and onward to the daringly cropped buildings.
Because this work was not exhibited and did not appear in the large sale of 1926 through which Esther cleared her late husband’s studio, it makes sense to imagine it was acquired by—or given to—Emily and Peregrine Feeney as a reminder of Waterhouse’s happy visits to Croyde. Peregrine died in 1913, and Emily followed him four years later, leaving an impressive sum of £17,386.10s to her younger brother Arthur William Kenworthy. A chartered accountant, he moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, and so this painting has spent much of its life in America rather than Britain.
We are grateful to Peter Trippi for his help in preparing this catalogue entry and for contributing this note.