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拍品專文
'Piero della Francesca ... most ably brought "up to date"' was how Frank Rinder described the painting in his review of Nicholson's solo exhibition at the Paterson Gallery (Art Journal, January 1907). Thus he identified two new features: the sensitive profile portrait, hitherto used almost exclusively by the artist for children, and the use of contemporary dress. The cut and fabric of the blouse and the straw boater with its generous covering of black ostrich feathers suggest a working-class girl in her best clothes on a summer outing, perhaps to Hampstead Heath. The sitter, Mrs Charlotte 'Lottie' Stafford (1883-1953), was a young washerwoman, Chelsea born and bred, whom William Orpen had persuaded to model for him in 1904. Orpen introduced her to Nicholson.
Nicholson's biographer, Marguerite Steen, relates that Lottie always concluded each sitting with the announcement, 'Well, I must be puttin' on me 'at an' get back to Paradise'. This was a reference to her home at in Paradise Walk, an overcrowded and insalubrious street of cottages near the Chelsea Embankment where she lived with her extended family. So unappealing was the site that neighbours in the adjoining Tite Street, such as Oscar Wilde, screened their windows that overlooked Paradise Walk. By 1901 when Lottie Macrow, as she then was, married John Christopher Stafford, cab-driver, and moved to Paradise Walk, both Oscar Wilde and Nicholson's hero Whistler had already left Tite Street. However there were numerous artists living in the street, most notably J.S. Sargent, although Lottie does not appear to have sat for anyone other than Orpen and Nicholson.
Nicholson first exhibited the work as 'Mrs ---- of Paradise Row', later adding Lottie's name. Paradise Row, now part of Royal Hospital Road, was a terrace of fine late seventeenth-century houses, albeit somewhat dilapidated, that looked onto the northern end of Paradise Walk and Tite Street. The houses were demolished, despite strong opposition, in the year that this portrait was painted (see Reginald Blunt, Paradise Row, or a Broken bit of Old Chelsea, London, 1906). Nicholson probably felt that this minor alteration to Lottie's address gave the work added interest.
The composition of the half, or three-quarter length figure against a light background with a low horizon line was to soon be considered a characteristic of Nicholson's work. The landscape background is evocative rather than specific. (For an inhabitant of overcrowded Paradise Walk the open landscape might have seemed as luxurious as the ostrich feathers on her hat.) Here Nicholson introduces a feature that he does not seem to have repeated, the use of curtains to frame the image, suggesting rather tentatively that Lottie is standing at a window. Published images of the work have on occasion cropped one or both of the curtains, or rendered them so pale as to appear like shadows cast by a frame.
We are very grateful to Patricia Reed for preparing this catalogue entry.
Nicholson's biographer, Marguerite Steen, relates that Lottie always concluded each sitting with the announcement, 'Well, I must be puttin' on me 'at an' get back to Paradise'. This was a reference to her home at in Paradise Walk, an overcrowded and insalubrious street of cottages near the Chelsea Embankment where she lived with her extended family. So unappealing was the site that neighbours in the adjoining Tite Street, such as Oscar Wilde, screened their windows that overlooked Paradise Walk. By 1901 when Lottie Macrow, as she then was, married John Christopher Stafford, cab-driver, and moved to Paradise Walk, both Oscar Wilde and Nicholson's hero Whistler had already left Tite Street. However there were numerous artists living in the street, most notably J.S. Sargent, although Lottie does not appear to have sat for anyone other than Orpen and Nicholson.
Nicholson first exhibited the work as 'Mrs ---- of Paradise Row', later adding Lottie's name. Paradise Row, now part of Royal Hospital Road, was a terrace of fine late seventeenth-century houses, albeit somewhat dilapidated, that looked onto the northern end of Paradise Walk and Tite Street. The houses were demolished, despite strong opposition, in the year that this portrait was painted (see Reginald Blunt, Paradise Row, or a Broken bit of Old Chelsea, London, 1906). Nicholson probably felt that this minor alteration to Lottie's address gave the work added interest.
The composition of the half, or three-quarter length figure against a light background with a low horizon line was to soon be considered a characteristic of Nicholson's work. The landscape background is evocative rather than specific. (For an inhabitant of overcrowded Paradise Walk the open landscape might have seemed as luxurious as the ostrich feathers on her hat.) Here Nicholson introduces a feature that he does not seem to have repeated, the use of curtains to frame the image, suggesting rather tentatively that Lottie is standing at a window. Published images of the work have on occasion cropped one or both of the curtains, or rendered them so pale as to appear like shadows cast by a frame.
We are very grateful to Patricia Reed for preparing this catalogue entry.