Lot 129: William Stott of Oldham, R.B.A. (1857-1900)

Idlers
signed 'WILLIAM-STOTT of OLDHAM-' (lower left) and further incised 'WILLIAM-STOTT OF OLDHAM 66 ADELAIDE ROAD LONDON NW' and '..STOTT OF OLDHAM./..LONDON' (on the stretcher) and further signed and inscribed 'IDLERS. WILLIAM-STOTT of OLDHAM.' (on an old label on the reverse) and further inscribed 'For James A. Maurice. Esq. Messrs R. Menzies & Son 87. Cambridge Street Glasgow.' (on an old label on the reverse)
oil on canvas
28 1/2 x 42 3/4 in. (72.9 x 108.6 cm.)

Manchester, Academy of Fine Arts, Jubilee Exhibition, 1909, no. 50. Oldham, City Art Gallery, William Stott of Oldham, December 2003 - April 2004, no. 65.

Art Journal, June 1896, p. 178.

With Idlers William Stott seems to be aligning himself with the 'Olympians' a strand of Aestheticism promoted by the artists Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Albert Moore, Sir Edward Poynter and Lord Leighton. Admiration for Greek and Roman culture was deeply ingrained in all aspects of Victorian life. As Christopher Wood in his book Olympian Dreamers states: 'The Victorian vision of antiquity was a deeply romantic one; they looked back wistfully to the past as to a golden, far simpler, nobler and more inspiring world than their own. The art was an expression of a desire to escape the ugliness, materialism and industrialism of their own age," (Olympian Dreamers - Victorian Classical Painters 1860-1914, 1983, p.17).

Between 1895 and 1898 Stott produced other 'classical' works in this genre, such as The Happy Valley (untraced) and Hide-and-Seek in the Garden of Epicurus (Gallery Oldham). But it is with Idlers that Stott most successfully captures this prevailing nostalgia for a bygone age. The picture also seems to be a deliberate pastiche of Jeunes Filles au bord de la Mer (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) by one of Stott's artist heroes, the French symbolist painter Puvis de Chavannes, even down to the small flowering shrubs superimposed against the figures and the prevailing mood of ennui. In so doing Stott has performed a remarkable illusion. He has taken the familiar motifs of the fore-shore and sand dunes at Ravenglass, where he had a house and studio, and transformed this bleak wind-swept Cumbrian coastline into a believeable impression of the Aegean with Grecian maidens basking in the Mediterranean sun. The classical buildings of an ancient city on the skyline add credence to this chimera.

Idlers was well received at the Royal Academy in 1896 and the Art Journal produced a full page reproduction of it, commenting 'the picture is one that is bound sooner or later to be looked on as a masterpiece. The delicate treatment of this charming subject is well represented in our reproduction.' (June, 1896, p.178).

It was shown at the Paris Salon in 1897 but has subsequently been exhibited very little and has remained in the family until now.

William Stott of Oldham trained in Paris with Gérôme. After early sucess in the Salon of 1882 he became a leading member of the Anglo-American artists' community in Paris and for a while he was considered one of the most progressive of English artists. In Paris, where he kept an apartment throughout the 1880s, he was exposed to the radical cross-currents of Impressionism and Symbolism and he made many influential friends in the artistic community, including Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, who was to have a profound impact on his artistic development. In the 1890s he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, mainly highly decorative allegorical works and subjects derived from classical mythology.

We are grateful to Roger Brown for his help in preparing this catalogue entry. Mr Brown is author of the catalogue to the recent exhibition: William Stott of Oldham: A Comet rushing to the Sun, Oldham Art Gallery, December 2003-April 2004.

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