229/2015

Paintings, Prints and Drawings

Portrait of Bell and Dorothy Freeman, watercolour on paper, by Edward Robert Hughes, signed and dated 1889.

painting

229/2015

On Display

Hughes, Edward Robert (artist)

1889 (painted)

London (painted)

Victorian (1837-1901)

watercolour
paper

painted

Painting, watercolour on stretched paper, glazed, in a gilt wood frame with two small portrait roundels.

This painting depicts two girls in an interior. The younger of the two is shown standing to the left of the image, wearing a blue smock dress, holding a violin and bow in her hands. The elder girl is wearing a white dress, with an orange sash around her waist and an orange bead necklace. She is shown, to the right of the painting, sitting on a settee holding a straw hat which is resting on her knee. Behind them is a window with decorative round panes and a panel of painted glass at the very top right corner of the image. This is painted with lettering giving the names of the sitters and the date of the painting: 'ISOBEL & DOROTHY FREEMAN 1889'. The window is dressed with a lightweight, translucent curtain which covers just the lower part of the glazing. A full-length, heavy, patterned, deep red coloured curtain can be seen to the left of the window. The wall below the window is covered with a floral patterned paper and the floor beneath the girls' feet with textured matting. On the windowsill there is a clear glass vase containing white freesias.

window
curtain
wallpaper
matting
settee
violin
dress
hat
vase
flowers

Height: 90cm
Width: 73.5cm
Height: 122.5cm
Width: 107.5cm

Decoration and furnishings
floor treatments
wall treatments
window treatments
furniture
ornaments
house plants and cut flowers
textiles
pictures
Images of homes
images of rooms
images of living rooms
Leisure and entertainment
music and music making
Household management and family wellbeing
child rearing

Label text for the digital interactive located in the Reading Room (September 2015- June 2017):

Portrait of Bell and Dorothy Freeman

By Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914)
Watercolour on paper, dated 1889

Isobel (seated) was fourteen and her sister Dorothy (standing) was eight years old when this portrait was painted. Their father was a barrister and the family lived in London, near Regents Park.

The room shown in the painting is furnished in the Aesthetic or ‘artistic’ taste, which become fashionable among the urban middle-classes, especially in artistic and intellectual circles, as an alternative to more mainstream furnishing choices. ‘Artistic’ features include the window with small round leaded lights, the heavy velvet curtains in a rich but muted red and the red matting on the floor. The wallpaper, which can be seen just behind the settee, is a pattern called ‘Sunflower’, designed by William Morris in 1879 and manufactured by Jeffrey for Morris & Co. The design includes the quintessential Aesthetic motifs of sunflowers and lilies, with trailing vines and bunches of grapes.

This painting was probably displayed in an ‘artistic’ interior in the Freeman family home.

NEW ACQUISITION

Portrait of Bell and Dorothy Freeman
By Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914)
Watercolour on paper, dated 1889

Isobel (seated) was fourteen and her sister Dorothy (standing) was eight years old when this portrait was painted. Their father was a barrister and the family lived in London, near Regents Park. The two girls are shown in a room furnished in the Aesthetic or artistic style, with wallpaper designed by William Morris, heavy velvet curtains and a clear glass vase on the windowsill. The frame includes small relief portraits of their parents.

Purchased with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund and the Arts Council England/Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund

The painting is out of copyright - the artist died in 1914.