Follower of Charles Sillem Lidderdale; A Fine c.1880 Portrait of a Young Lady

SOLD
Origin: British
Period: Victorian
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1870-90
Canvas Height: 21 inches
Canvas Width: 17.25 inches

The very well depicted head and shoulders portrait of a young and beautiful British girl, possibly of Scottish origin, with a slightly aggrieved disposition, strawberry ginger hair, rose tinted cheeks, wearing a lace adorned dress with golden ribbons and a pinned garniture of three snowdrops to her chest, the whole on a deep forest green ground, painted in oils on canvas and remaining unframed and surviving from the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The picture is in un-restored condition and we love it as it is. There are no major losses and the canvas has quite an extensive amount of craquelure to its surface, though heavier in and around the girls dress. There are a few very minor areas of flaked loss and one can see where she once sat in a period frame with an outline to her borders and there are some spots of dirt to the flesh tones. There are three patch repairs to the canvas where it had been split at some stage. We think she looks fantastic in this un-meddled with state.

This work is of the same style as that of Charles Sillem Lidderdale; who was a British artist whose work often focused on portraits of young women in outdoor settings. Lidderdale exhibited 36 paintings at the Royal Academy between 1856 to 1893. This particular picture has some similarity with a work named ‘Ophelia’ by Lidderdale which features very much the same tone, colours and composition. Whoever painted this work had as good a hand as Lidderdale himself.

This picture also features three snowdrops which is the same amount that featured in Dante Gabriel Rosseti’s Blanzifiore (Snowdrops) of 1873 which depicted Jane Burden Morris and the presence of them in both pictures is intended to symbolise purity and hope.

One can clearly see this girl’s personality and character in the way she is shown making this an arresting, haunting and very well realised picture indeed.
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