Description
Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859 - 1903)
Her Garden (1891)
Oil on panel, 35.5 x 25.5 cm (14 x 10)
Signed Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 1891, No. 224 Entitled Her Garden, £10-10
Literature: Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, Cat No. 300, p. 130; Adrian le Harival and Michael Wynne, National Gallery of Ireland, Acquisitions, 1984 - 1986, 1986, p. 68 Among Walter Osborne's favourite subjects were scenes of girls in gardens, (1), farmyards, orchards and courtyards, and boys in the landscape, village street or by the seashore, painted variously in Antwerp, Brittany, England and Ireland. The theme of the garden became immensely popular during the Impressionist period. (2)
Painted in an English village in the middle of his career, the present picture of a girl in a garden belongs to this tradition, and is notable for its sunlit atmosphere and vivid colouring. Executed on a sturdy wooden panel, the picture was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1891, entitled Her Garden. Osborne recorded the painting in a small ink drawing for his sketchbook. In visits to England from the mid 1880's to the early nineties Osborne painted in a number of small towns and villages, working in the company of fellow artists. He painted many open-air scenes of villages, streets, gardens and farmyards, of farming subjects with people at work or relaxing, and of landscapes and coastal subjects. In the late eighties his careful Realist style gave way to a broader more colourful approach. This marked a response to a series of exceptionally sunny summers, to the vivid red brickwork and verdant surroundings of English villages, and to the influence of contemporaries, such as W. Blandford Fletcher, or the Impressionism of Philip Wilson Steer or John Singer Sargent. Painted in 1888 Her Garden is a companion picture to the larger canvas A Cottage Garden, (probably originally entitled Bachelor's Garden, 1888, NGI)
which also features a profuse garden, a similar red brick farmhouse, and a figure: that of a bearded man standing in his doorway in the background. The present picture shows a girl in a cottage garden watering flowers on a sunny day. The back door and window of the cottage are open, suggesting contact between house and garden. As in many of his paintings, Osborne enjoys the interlocking lines and forms of walls, rooftops, doors and windows. In Her Garden the lower roofs have red tiles, while the main roof of the house is thatched. Osborne captures the glare of a summer's day, where sunshine falls upon the farmhouse, the roof, and much of the garden; and upon the straw hat, the lower part of the girl's face, and upon her shoulders. Although her figure is treated with generality rather than detail, and her hat overshadows her eyes, there is a feeling of contentment to her. Osborne made a tiny ink sketch after the painting. This was included in a sketchbook in which he recorded many of his pictures painted 1879-1893. This remained in a family collection, and was presented to the National Gallery of Ireland by Mrs Sophia Mallin in 1984(3). The drawing features the girl watering flowers in the garden, with the house behind. Slight differences between the sketch and the painting: the windows, the lack of the gabled house on the left in the sketch, the slope of the roof, upper right, and the angle of the tree, can be explained by the fact that this is not a preparatory drawing for the painting but is a sketch made afterwards, probably from memory. The fluid lines on the left, indicating the foliage, suggest that Osborne had represented the garden and flowers in a broader, more abstract way. Below the sketch Osborne has written the title, which may initially appear to be the word 'Hereforden', ie. suggesting that the girl is a native of Hereford. However, Adrian le Harival and Michael Wynne have correctly interpreted the inscription as Her Garden (4), the title of the painting which Osborne exhibited at the RHA in 1891. However, it is worth noting that the sketch is included on a page of other drawings of pictures painted in 1888-89, indicating that Her Garden was also painted in this period, and exhibited a couple of years later. Osborne was skilled at integrating the figures of children into the landscape, at work or resting. He often featured a girl in the foreground of his rural scenes, as for example in Apple Gathering, Quimperlé, 1883 (NGI), Feeding Chickens, 1884(5), Girl in a Garden (NGI)
and Study from Nature (6). Girls wearing similar sturdy white straw hats and simple white dresses appear in several pictures of the period. There are several distinctive characteristics of Osborne's plein-air paintings of this period that appear in Her Garden. First is his skill at representing the hands of women and children, at work or at rest. This can be seen in Apple Gathering, Feeding Chickens, Potato Gathering (7), St Patrick's Close, 1887 (NGI), and Piping Times (Boy and Girl in a Garden)
(8). Secondly, there is the representation of the tree trunk, employing a 'square-brush' style, and the section of bare wood near the bottom of the tree. Thirdly, there is the depiction of a cottage rooftop and section of blue sky above it, as, for instance, in Flemish Farmstead (9), A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, 1883 (included in the present sale), The Intruder, 1883 (10), The Farmyard, Brittany (11), and in the present picture, Her Garden. Within the relatively small picture Osborne employs a variety of colours, brushmarks and textures, to evoke the warm summer's atmosphere of the scene. Inspired by the vivid red of the brick houses and the verdant gardens of some English villages, a number of paintings of this period employed vibrant red, ochre and green tones. In Her Garden Osborne uses a variety of colours to create a warm, vibrant effect: pale pinks, browns and reds in the cottage, white in the piece of fabric in the garden, a glowing green in the garden, dappled whites, blues and pinks in the girl's dress, viridian, burgundy and blue-green in the flowers, and a pale blue in the strip of sky. Osborne's skill in observing subtle hues is seen for instance in the soft blues present in the shadows of the girl's dress and the wall behind her head, and in the strip of lilac below the roof. Osborne's use of varied brushmarks and textures convey the feeling of sunlight: upright brushstrokes in the thatched roof of the cottage and light green areas of the garden; lively strokes in the girl's dress and in the bush, upper right; a 'square-brush' style in the trunk of the small tree; and more varied marks in the flowers and grasses in the foreground. In the companion picture A Cottage Garden (NGI)
mentioned above, Osborne similarly experiments with bolder marks and thicker paint to suggest the varied forms and textures of flowers and grasses. Infra-red examination of Her Garden has revealed the presence of the date '-88' below the signature, in the lower right-hand corner. This indicates that the picture was painted in 1888, and that Osborne retained it in his studio for three years before exhibiting it. He would have been aware of the Impressionistic garden scenes of J.S.Sargent exhibited in London in this period, and may have been stimulated to experiment with a more colourful Impressionistic style. Thus, Her Garden is an important transitional picture between the 1880s and nineties. Upon his return to Dublin, in his garden scenes Osborne pursued a more fluid style of painting, using thinner paint. During his career Osborne enjoyed making use of different surfaces for his paintings: canvases, light wood panels, millboards, and here a sturdy wooden panel with bevelled edges (12). On the reverse is a label by the Dublin art suppliers: from J.D.Spence, Printseller, Artists Colorman, Picture Frame Maker &c .7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin. This is the same artist's suppliers at which Osborne purchased his sketchbooks. This present work was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1891, touchingly entitled Her Garden, and priced £10-10. The critic of The Irish Times, although he didn't make particular reference to the picture, made overall comments on the show which seem perfectly appropriate to Osborne's painting:The impression that .... the exhibition produces is one of vitality, brightness and life - of perfect truth to nature ... (13)
Julian Campbell Notes: 1.See Margaret MacCurtain, Reflections on Walter Osborne's Study from Nature, in America's Eye: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, ed. By A.L.Dalsimer and V.Kreilkamp, Boston, 1996, p29-32 2.See eg J. Bumpus, Impressionist Gardens, London. 1990; The Garden in British Art, Tate, London and Ulster Museum, Belfast 2004-2005; and Clare Willsdon, Impressionist Gardens, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2010 3. NGI Cat. No. 19, 201, p.12, verso 4.Adrian Le Harival and Michael Wynne, NGI Acquisitions, 1984-86, NGI 1986, p.68 5.Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, NGI, 1983, P.70 6.Christina Kennedy, Walter Osborne's 'Study from Nature' in America's Eye, 1996, op. cit. P.121 7.J. Sheehy, op cit. P. 85 8. de Vere's, 22 April 1998, lot 40 9. de Vere's, 25 November 2003, lot 50 10.Irish Sale, Christies, 21 May 1997, lot 150 11.Adam's, 8 December 2009, lot 59 12.Osborne made use of similar wood panels with bevelled edges in some of his Connemara pictures in the 1890s. 13.Irish Times, 7 March 1891
Starting Bid: 56000
