Jacob Maris, 'A Girl seated outside a House', 1867
Full title | A Girl seated outside a House |
---|---|
Artist | Jacob Maris |
Artist dates | 1837 - 1899 |
Date made | 1867 |
Medium and support | oil on wood |
Dimensions | 32.7 × 20.9 cm |
Inscription summary | Signed; Dated |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Mrs Mary James Mathews to the Tate Gallery in memory of her husband, Frank Claughton Mathews, 1944; transferred, 1956 |
Inventory number | NG5568 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
When this small painting on wood was bequeathed to the National Gallery it had the title Vespers, although it had previously been titled Young Girl with Flowers. The composition is very similar to a picture titled Sunday Afternoon, which Jacob Maris had painted a few years earlier in 1863. That painting’s current location is unknown, but a lithograph of it shows a slightly older girl, who is knitting as she sits outside an ivy-covered house with a church in the distance.
In this picture, painted in 1867, Maris has replaced the knitting with a straw hat, which the girl is decorating with flowers. She is also wearing jewellery. The church itself is in Montigny-sur-Loing, a small town on the southern edge of the forest at Fontainebleau, some 50 miles south of Paris. The same girl may have posed for A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage, also in the Gallery’s collection, which was painted in the same year.
When this small painting on wood was bequeathed to the National Gallery it had the title Vespers, although it had previously been titled Young Girl with Flowers when listed with a Paris dealer in 1900.
The composition is very similar to a picture titled Sunday Afternoon (Zondagmiddag), which Jacob Maris had painted a few years earlier, in 1863. Formerly in the William Van Horne Collection in Montreal, that painting’s current location is unknown, but a lithograph of it was made by Frederik Weissenbruch. This shows a girl, who is slightly older, seated outside an ivy-covered house. A church spire can also be seen in the distance on the left. However, the girl in Sunday Afternoon is knitting, and her dress is of finer quality.
In this picture, painted in 1867, Maris has replaced the knitting with a rather worn straw hat, which the girl is decorating with flowers. She is also wearing jewellery (a necklace and earrings) – perhaps because of a visit to the church. The same girl may have posed for A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage, which was painted in the same year. The church itself is in Montigny-sur-Loing, a small town on the southern edge of the forest at Fontainebleau, some 50 miles south of Paris. It also appears in View of Montigny-sur-Loing (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam), which Maris painted in 1870.
Maris reused many of the features in both pictures in another painting, Girl-Knitting on a Balcony, Montmartre (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague), painted two years later in 1869. This painting returns to the earlier image of a girl (seen in profile) knitting, but also includes a straw hat, which has been placed on the ground.
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