Lot 12: Walter Frederick Osborne RHA ROI (1859-1903) AT A CHILD'S BEDSIDE, 1898

signed and dated lower left; inscribed [Violet Stockley, aged 5 years] on RHA label on reverse; titled on other label on reverse

h:7 w:10in.

watercolour

New English Arts Club, 1899, no. 30;
Watercolour Society of Ireland, 1901, no. 15;
'Memorial Exhibition of the works of Walter Osborne', Royal Hibernian Academy, Winter 1903-04, catalogue no. 12
'Walter Osborne', National Gallery of Ireland, 16 November to 31 December 1983 and The Ulster Museum, 20 January to 29 February 1984, catalogue no. 72
'An Exhibition of 18th, 19th & 20th Century Irish Paintings', Gorry Gallery, Dublin, 25 May to 6 June 1995, no. 4 (illustrated p.7)

Sheehy, Jeanne, Walter Osborne, Gifford and Craven, Ballycotton, Co. Cork, 1974, catalogue no. 507 (plate 37);
Sheehy, Jeanne, Walter Osborne, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1983, catalogue no. 72 (illustrated);
Ulster Museum, Belfast, January/February 1984, catalogue no. 72 (illustrated p.129)

Mrs Osborne;
Miss Violet Stockley (The Artist's Niece);
Thence by descent to Mrs Sophia Mallin;
Thence by family descent;
with the Gorry Gallery, Dublin, 1995
Private Collection

Walter Osborne had a close relationship with his family, and he depicted its members: his father, animal painter William Osborne, his mother Annie Jane, his brother Charles, who was working as a clergyman in England, his sister Violet, and her daughter on several occasions, in pencil, watercolour or oil. Violet and her husband Stockley moved to Canada but, sadly, she died in child birth of her baby daughter. The infant, also named Violet, came to live in Dublin, and Walter Osborne, who had been working in England, returned to assist his parents, (little Violet's grandparents) bring up the child at their family home at 5, Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines. (1)

Although he had no children of his own Osborne loved children, and girls and boys featured in many pictures throughout his career. He was a superb portraitist, and his pictures of children show a particular empathy. He was a devoted uncle, and Violet featured in many studies, in pencil, watercolour and oils, during the late 1890s and early 1900s. Several studies are dated, so we thus have a record of her as she grew from infancy to girlhood. She is included in many beautiful pencil sketches, playing, being fed by her grandparents or nurse, looking at the viewer, or sleeping, in Osborne's sketchbooks, in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland; and with her grandparents in Osborne's major oil painting Portraits. At the Breakfast Table, 1894. (2)

The present sale at Whyte's includes two watercolours of Violet: as a baby, aged one year and eight months, and as a child of five years. Both pictures remained in family collections for many years.

Violet Stockley, aged one year and eight months.

In this slightly larger watercolour, Violet is shown seated in a wooden chair at a child's table in the Osborne's sitting or dining room, with furniture around her. Light enters from the left, lighting up her berry hair and her face, she looks out of the picture: not directly at the artist, but slightly to the right, perhaps at her grandmother or another figure behind? Violet wears a white bib over her navy-blue smock, and her hands hold a sheet of paper, which she has just been looking at or drawing on. Prior to painting the watercolour, Osborne made preparatory studies in pencil, for example, Violet at Play, and Violet Looking at a Book (NGI cat. no. 19, 228 and 19. 209). (3) These drawings and the present watercolour show Osborne's skill in portraying children, capturing their innocence and vulnerability. (4) Violet's clothes are indicated fleetingly, but her fair hair and bonny face are shown clearly, lit up against the shadows. The surroundings and furniture are suggested with characteristic virtuosity: employing wet brushstrokes in the child's table, but drier marks on the green table top and pink curtain, suggesting that the artist may have scraped the paint, or used coloured chalks or pastels in some areas, to give texture. Some of the picture's edges are left unfinished, giving a fresh, Impressionistic quality. There is a delicate harmony in Osborne's use of colours. Notable are the delicately evoked mugs, pale blue with white handles, on the top of the press.

At a Child's Bedside, 1898, shows Violet aged five years, asleep in a metal-framed bed, watched over by a woman, perhaps her grandmother. The child has blond hair, and one hand is stretched out on her pillow, 'echoed' by the woman's hand which rests on the bed covering. Equally, the pink and white hues of the pillow can be seen again in the pink and white bedding at the bottom of the picture. The 'halo' effects around the woman's head shows the artist positioning the figure, while the still-life detail: bottles, flowers and a candle on the press, provide a note of calm. Osborne uses a gentle palette of greys, maroons, off-whites and pinks. To indicate the folds of the bed covering he employs pale, sweeping lines, his brushes probably loaded with water to leave