This portrait shows Mrs. Mary Maud Foot with her three children relaxing in their garden at Church House in Pulborough, West Sussex, around 1902. Mary is seated next to her daughter Enid whilst her two older sons Leslie and Eric are placed further in the background. Not featured is their father, Dr Ernest Foot, who established a practice in the village some years earlier.
Visitors to Hastings Museum and Art Gallery might easily overlook this small oil painting as its canvas barely measures half the size of this page. Despite its modest proportions, it offers the keen-eyed visitor a charming and quintessential view of the English countryside that has changed little in the century and a half since it was painted.
William Holman-Hunt was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood alongside fellow students at the Royal Academy art school. Holman-Hunt’s artistic career nearly ended before it began when his application to study at the Royal Academy art school was rejected.
Philip Wilson Steer was a son of Birkenhead whose artistic prowess brought much success during his own lifetime, but he is sadly less well known now than he deserves to be.
Visitors to the Hove Museum and Art Gallery might easily miss this small, unassuming portrait of a young lady reading a book. It is a simple yet intriguing composition that evokes a sense of serenity and calm.
This large and striking portrait of Lady Egerton was completed in 1894 by the noted Florentine artist Michele Gordigiani. The painting was commissioned by Gertrude’s father, Earl Egerton of Tatton to mark her marriage to Arnold Keppel, 8th Earl of Albemarle. Gordigiani trained at the Academy I Florence. He served his apprenticeship in the studio of Luigi Mussini and moved to Paris in 1860 at the invitation of the Countess of Castiglione.
Perhaps best known to the residents of Cheshire as Countess Egerton of Tatton, Alice Anne Graham-Montgomery added this title to her name on the occasion of her second marriage, this time to Wilbraham Egerton, first and last Earl Egerton of Tatton and heir to the extensive Tatton estate.
The imposing three-quarter length portrait greets visitors to the Old Hall, much as Lady Alice herself would have greeted guests entering her drawing room over a century ago.
The May Day holiday can be traced back as far as the ancient Roman festival of Floralia, a six day festival of games which included the scattering of flowers and the wearing of colourful garments. To this day May Day celebrations are an integral part of English culture marked by activities such as Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and dancing around a maypole.
In this petite painting by the noted Victorian artist Talbot Hughes we see an attractive young lady at her dressing table delicately making the final adjustments to her ornate and elaborate outfit, perhaps in readiness for a promenade to her local May Day celebrations. She leans towards the mirror, her coy gaze perhaps suggesting the nature of her planned rendezvous. Hughes draws our attention to the finery of the costume by placing it prominently in the frame. He uses a restricted palette of colours, which accentuates the intricacy of the floral pattern on the dress and the delicate lacework on the overgown. This is no accident; whilst Hughes’ paintings of Victorian scenes and landscapes were held in particular regard, being regular features of the Royal Academy for over three decades, he was also an expert on ladies’ fashion. (more…)
Michael Escolme 