A Roman Offering

This picture represents a remarkable fusion of influences from an early period in Waterhouse’s career, before he embraced Arthurian subject matter. It was inspired by visits to Capri, first undertaken in 1888, where a few years later Alma-Tadema would find inspiration for A Coign of Vantage (lot 26). Waterhouse has chosen a classical subject, a young girl in Roman dress leaving flowers at a small household shrine, later repeated in another composition entitled At the Shrine. However, in a nod to the work of Sir George Clausen, which translated the naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage across the Channel in France into gentler subject matter which appealed to English collectors, Waterhouse chose a model who looked more English than Italian. His brushwork also demonstrated the influence of the great French and English naturalist painters through his use of a square brush, rather than anything finer. This charming Italiantate subject matter found ready audiences among British collectors who lived under less temperate skies, and his Capri pictures form a distinct niche in Waterhouse’s oeuvre. It was entirely typical of Mrs. Getty's intelligent eye to include in her collection a Waterhouse that resonates so well with A Coign of Vantage.