Lot 145: Augustus Leopold Egg (1816-1863)

Augustus Leopold Egg (1816-1863)
A young lady at her toilet
oil on canvas
23½ x 19½ in. (59.7 x 49.5 cm.)

London, J.S. Maas & Co., An Exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite and Romantic Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours and Prints, 1977, no. 14.
New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, The Substance or the Shadow: Images of Victorian Womanhood, 1982, no. 28.
New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, The Edmund J. and Suzanne
McCormick Collection, 1984, pp. 32-3, no. 8.
Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix Art Museum, English Idylls: The Edmund J.
and Suzanne McCormick Collection of Victorian Art, 1988, no. 11.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, From Queen to Empress:
Victorian Dress 1837-1877, 1988.

C. Forbes, 'McCormick's Victorian Reapings: An American Collection of
British Nineteenth-Century Pictures', Nineteenth Century, vol. 6,
Summer 1980, p. 40.
S.P. Casteras (ed.), catalogue to The Substance or the Shadow:
Images of Victorian Womanhood, Yale Center of British Art, New Haven, 1982, no. 28, pp. 31, 71-2, pl. 29, illustrated on cover.
H. Faberman, 'Augustus Leopold Egg, R.A. (1816-1863), Ph.D thesis, Yale University, 1983, pp. 89, 367, 436, fig. 27, illustrated.
S.P. Casteras (ed.), catalogue to he Edmund J. and Suzanne McCormick Collection of Victorian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
1984, pp. 32-3, illustrated.
G. Glueck, 'Gallery View', The New York Timies, 12 February 1984, p. 33.
S.P. Casteras, Images of Victorian Womanhood in English Art, London and Toronto, 1987, p. 108, illustrated.

The artist's sale; Christie's, London, 18 May 1863, lot 117.
Gilbert.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 15 October 1976, lot 3 as 'He loves me'.
with J.S. Maas & Co., London, by 1977.
with Christopher Wood, London.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium
Augustus Egg's representation of a golden-haired young woman gazing at her reflection in a dressing table mirror finds its roots in the 17th Century Dutch tradition. Masters such as Gerrit Dou and Gerard Terborch delighted in the depiction of scenes of beautiful women at their toilet, their vanity and idleness put into stark contrast by the pious plainness of their attending maids. Painters of the 19th Century, such as Augustus Egg, recognised in these scenes an opportunity to combine eye-catching beauty with moral commentary.

In the present work, the viewer is presented with a scene which delights the senses. An attractive young woman in a well-fitting, elegant dress is decked in jewels before a richly draped mirror. The wreath of flowers lying on the drapery in the foreground is echoed in the single rose which the young woman holds against her face. It is not until the viewer's gaze rests on the stern expression of the attending maid, whose black costume disguises her presence, that the moral commentary of the scene unfolds. The maid is diligent and industrious while her mistress is idle and vain. The contrast is emphasised as the viewer notices that the separate gazes of the women converge in the mirror.

The sale of Egg's estate confirms that he copied the works of Terborch and other Dutch masters in his youth and contemporary criticism suggests his debt to this tradition. When reviewing the present painting in 1866, Henry O'Neil remarked on the influence of Metsu and de Hooch on Egg's detailed, highly finished surfaces. Egg would have been a mere sixteen when Terborch's Lady at her Toilet, circa 1657 (Wallace Collection, London) was exhibited at the British Institution in 1832 but the striking similarity between the paintings suggests that Egg must have known about it.