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Dimensions: 78 by 52.5cm.; 30¾ by 20¾in.
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Provenance: Herbert Jones Esq.;
Sale, Christie's London, 19 May 1950, lot No.70;
Private Collection;
Mrs Q.V. Moss;
Sale, Sotheby's London, 10 November 1981, lot 101, as A Model Standing by a Mirror;
Pyms Gallery, London
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Literature: The Arts, Vol. XII, 5th November 1927, p.260, illustrated;
Kenneth McConkey, A Free Spirit, Irish Art 1860-1960, Pyms Gallery, London & Antiques Collectors Club, Woodbridge, 1990, pp.136-137, pl.33.
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF VIRGINIA S. MAILMAN
Around 1914, Orpen painted a number of interiors demonstrating his preoccupation with the fall of light through the large studio windows of 8 South Bolton Gardens, London. This creates a lattice-work of light and shade in which a semi-nude figure poses. There were at least three works in the series. In the present work, Sunlight [No.1], now referred to as Summer, full concentration is given to the figure posing by a large mirror in which the artist's easel is clearly discernible. The young woman stares at her own reflection. So rich are the associations of this act within the image community to which Orpen appealed, that it is difficult to cite more than a few examples. Like Whistler before him, Orpen was a great admirer of Velasquez' Rokeby Venus. Dutch seventeenth century painting provided another extremely fertile set of sources, as did the painters of Whistler's generation -- the painters of the 1860s. In Orpen's case, there was great diversity in the use of mirrors. The most important single reference point for this image must be The Reflection (1906, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), in which a model, Flossie Burnett, wearing a hooded cloak, turns away from the spectator, but reveals her nakedness in a large studio mirror. By the time The Model (fig.1, Leeds City Art Galleries) and Summer were painted, this figure was draped like Venus de Milo, yet any hint of classicism is checked by the Dutch setting. There can be no suggestion, however, that aspects of this melange are mutually contradictory. The unifying feature of this, and the other works in the series, is what P.G. Konody referred to as,
'. . .his virtuosity and an almost feverish activity. So startling is the effect of the streaks and splashes of light cutting into the solid forms, that at first glance the spectator is almost turned giddy' (P.G. Konody and S. Dark, Sir William Orpen: Artist and Man, Seeley Service, London, 1932, p.217).
Here, more than any other work, Orpen comes close to fracturing forms at the very moment when such techniques were being developed elsewhere by the Futurists. The painter had, however, no wish to break down and reconstitute the picture plane in abstract terms; he merely wished to push his own self-imposed boundaries to the limit. 'Orpen', Konody reflected, 'had now gone a long way since the days when he competed with the Dutch small masters in the precise and minute rendering of the normal aspects of indoor life. . .' (ibid, p.217).
The Orpen Research Project
