[Side Portrait of a Young Woman in Renaissance Costume]. Watercolour in muted tones, signed lower right W.J. NEATBY. Date unknown, but part of a set of three, known to have been given as a wedding gift in 1919. Size: H 11 x W 8 cm, shown on the right in its frame, which is 4 cm in width.
This young woman is seen in profile from the waist up, as if she is just passing by. She is slender, demure both in dress and expression. She stands close to a small pot-planted tree on a ledge, the leaves olive in colour, suggesting an Italian garden of that era. The simple patterning of the snood covering her hair, the narrow frilled ruff at her neck with its beaded adornment, and the understated colour and pattern of her robe, with one dark, faintly patterned sleeve showing from a side-slit, all sugget an almost convent-like atmosphere. In keeping with this, her expression is composed, contemplative, but with the hint of a smile. Again, there may be a Pre-Raphaelite echo here: see, for example, Charles Allston Collins's Convent Thoughts.
Links to others in the set
Photographs by Shirley Nicholson, with caption details by Nicholson and comments and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Created 10 April 2024