Lot 45: Spring

John Reinhard Weguelin, R.W.S. (1849-1927) Spring signed and dated 'J R Weguelin/1890' (lower left) oil on canvas 68¼ x 32 in. (173.3 x 81.2 cm.)

London, The New Gallery, Summer Exhibition, 1888.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
This is one of Weguelin's most celebrated pictures, and appears in Baldry's appreciation of the artist published in the Studio Magazine (op. cit.). Although born near Arundel Weguelin spent his boyhood in Rome, following his father's conversion to Catholicism; it was probably this formative experience that gave him a lifelong feeling for classical and pagan themes. He studied at the Slade and showed at the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery; he also supported the New Gallery, the Grosvenor's successor, which opened in 1888. It was there and in that opening year that this picture was shown (according to a label on the reverse) although confusingly the artist has dated the picture 1890, presumably after completing some minor amendments.

Contemporary critics ranked him alongside Waterhouse as a classicising follower of Alma-Tadema, and noted how slavishly he developed some of Alma-Tadema's themes. The present picture is certainly strongly reminiscent of the background figures in On the Road to the Temple of Ceres, which Alma-Tadema exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880 and which recently appeared on the London market in the sale of the Forbes Collection (Christie's, London, 19-20 February 2003, lot 25).