81/1996

Paintings, Prints and Drawings

Interior with a couple playing cards, oil on canvas, signed by Nancy A Sabine Pasley, 1887-1891.

Interior with a couple playing cards
A Game of Cards

painting
oil painting

81/1996

On Display

Miss Nancy A. Sabine Pasley (artist)

1887-1891 (painted)

London (painted)

Victorian (1837-1901)

oil paint
wood
canvas

painted

This small painting is in oil on canvas. It shows a young man and woman playing cards in a drawing room furnished largely in the artistic style. The two figures are shown seated, on either side of a small table with a peacock blue cover, towards the right of the painting. The man is dressed in a dark suit and sitting on a couch, while his companion, wearing a reddish coloured dress, is sitting on a side chair.

The room is decorated in muted greens and yellows and the furnishings and decoration are depicted in great detail. The left half of the painting is dominated by a fireplace, which has a white marble surround and decorative tiles in the grate, with an over-mantel mirror in an ebonised wood frame, which incorporates shelves for ornaments, above. A framed photograph, several vases and two oil lamps with porcelain owl bases are arranged on the mantelshelf, which is covered with an embroidered blue velvet valence.

To the left of the fireplace there is a small bamboo table with shelves, upon which some flowers, a small statuette or china figure and a book have been placed. Several framed pictures, various pieces of porcelain, two framed oriental fans and and two ostrich eggs are shown hanging, in a symmetrical arrangement, on the wall to either side of the fireplace. A number of houseplants can be seen in the fireplace, on a table between the couch and the window and on a shelf in one corner of the room.

The picture is framed, in a late eighteenth-century gilt wood frame, and glazed.

Height: 19.2cm
Width: 29.5cm
Height: 29cm
Width: 39.2cm
Height: 19.4cm
Width: 29.6cm

furniture
pictures
oil lighting
games
house plants and cut flowers
images of living rooms
fireplaces
window treatments
wall treatments
ceiling treatments
ornaments
textiles

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

‘A Game of Cards’
By Nancy A. Sabine Pasley
Oil on canvas, 1887-1891

This typical late-Victorian drawing room has been updated and decorated in what would have been considered an artistic fashion. The standard white marble fireplace has been made more tasteful with the addition of a mantel board and embroidered cloth.

Various objects from or inspired by Asia and the Middle East are on display, including the ebonised overmantel mirror with shelves displaying ceramics, the decorative fans and ostrich eggs on either side of the fireplace, and the small bamboo table.

Label text, Geffrye Museum, date unknown:

A Game of Cards. Nancy A. Sabine Pasley, c. 1885-95. Oil on canvas.

Label text for Recent Acquisitions - In focus case, Geffrye Museum, 1997:

'A Game of Cards' by Nancy A. Sabine Pasley

This painting was purchased by the museum in May 1996. Since then both the painting and its frame have been cleaned and conserved.
Background: The painting was acquired at a country house sale in Somerset. It was very dirty but close examination suggested that cleaning would reveal fine details which could just be glimpsed through the murky surface. It is these closely-observed details and the atmosphere that the painting conveys of a room in use that make the painting such an important acquisition for a museum of the domestic interior.
The Artist: Although part of the signature could be seen in the lower left corner, the dirt made it unclear and the auctioneers had incorrectly catalogued the painting as by N. A. Sabine Paul. However, closer scrutiny revealed that the last word was Pasley, not Paul, allowing the artist to be identified as Nancy A. Sabine Pasley. She lived just off Kensington Church Street in West London, and exhibited paintings between 1886 and 1895. More research is needed to find other examples of her work and details of her biographical background.
The Cleaning: The conservator began by carrying out small cleaning tests on discreet areas of the canvas (see detail of top left corner). These showed that the top layers were indeed surface dirt with a high nicotine content, as well as discoloured varnish.
Any damaged and flaking paint was consolidated using a wax and resin mixture, and losses were filled with chalk and gelatine and retouched. Finally the canvas was revarnished.
The Interior: The painting dates from the 1890s. It shows a typical late-Victorian drawing room with influences from the Aesthetic or Art style. This style was popular from the 1870s until the turn of the century, and is shown here particularly in the ebonised overmantel mirror displaying ceramics, the framed oriental fans and the small bamboo table. Many of the furnishings can be identified in contemporary catalogues (see below).
It is possible that the artist worked using a photograph, a popular technique in the late nineteenth century, as the detail and perspective appear to be extremely accurate. Look at the way the cornice of the wall behind the viewer is reflected in the mirror and at the details of the flowers of the tiles in the grate. Ostrich eggs hang either side of the overmantel and the lamp bases are clearly in the form of owls.

Label text for the exhibition At Home with the World, Geffrye Museum (20 March 2012- 9 September 2012):

Painting of an interior with a couple playing cards
By Nancy A. Sabine Pasley, England
Oil on canvas
1887–1891

This painting in warm, muted colours shows an ‘artistically’ decorated living room. ‘Artistic’ style had strong sympathies with Japanese design, and the peacock feather fan or bamboo table that might look like a cheap knick-knack on the page of a catalogue, are shown here rather beautifully furnishing a quietly artistic room.

Painting is out of copyright.
The photograph is in copyright to the Museum of the Home