James Smetham

With Stone Gallery, Newcastle;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 April 1974, lot 60;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 16 October 1986, lot 238;

Where purchased by the present owner.

M. Bishop and E. Malins, James Smetham and Francis Danby, Two Nineteenth Century Romantic Painters, London 1974, p. 42;

S.P. Casteras, James Smetham: Artist, Author, Pre-Raphelite Associate, Aldershot 1995, p. viii, no. 18, reproduced p. 87.

For five years, between 1863 and 1868, James Smetham spent almost every Wednesday in the studio of his friend and mentor Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There, in 1866 a superb oil painting The Mandolin (Christie’s, London, 13 December 2017, lot 13) was painted by Smetham under Rossetti’s supervision. For this picture one of Rossetti’s favourite models was appareled in a studio costume and the two artists worked together on the canvas with Rossetti making suggestions and improvements himself – the extent to which Rossetti contributed to the picture is debatable but probably much of the face is his work. The present watercolour appears to be a variant of the oil, almost certainly painted by Smetham without Rossetti’s assistance. The model for the two pictures (there may be a third version, entitled Irene) was Ellen Smith, a pretty laundress who was portrayed by Rossetti in pictures such as Joli Coeur of 1867 (Manchester City Art Gallery) and The Christmas Carol of the same year (sold in these Rooms, 4 December 2013, lot 48). She ceased to pose for artists soon afterwards when she was disfigured by a jealous suitor. She is dressed in a gown lined with swans-down which Rossetti painted in The Blue Bower in 1865 (Barber Institute, University of Birmingham).