A Girl Watching a Tortoise (whole painting, with close-up of the woman on the right), 1873. Oil on canvas. 78¾ x 35½ inches (200 x 90 cm). Private collection.
This is one of Armstrong's most Moore-like compositions. Armstrong was likely first introduced to Moore through James Whistler and the two quickly became firm friends. Armstrong was a near neighbour and a constant visitor to the studio that Moore had moved to in Fitzroy Square in 1865. Armstrong admired his friend's work to the extent that he acquired some preliminary drawings for a few of Moore's paintings. This admiration for Moore's art ultimately led to the resemblances between the works of the two artists. A Girl Watching a Tortoise was one of a pair of pieces that Armstrong was commissioned to paint to decorate the dining room of the home of Eustace Smith and his wife Mary Martha [Eustacia] Dalrymple at 52 Prince's Gate, London.
Armstrong showed this picture at the Royal Academy in 1874, no. 1054, where it was hung next to Albert Moore's Shells. F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum noted how the two works complemented each other:
"In the Lecture-Room is Mr. A. Moore's fine piece of decorative art, styled Shells (936), a noble study of color, - a full-length, upright figure of a nymph of a stream, - a study of a high kind, which should have been better drawn if the artist cared for his own reputation or respected the spectator. - Near it is Mr. Armstrong's A Girl watching a Tortoise (1054). These works are apparently intended as pendants to each other. The style of the latter is merely an echo of that the former. Allowing for that, Mr. Armstrong has produced a very charming work, in a phase of decorative art which is easier than people are ready to admit. Such work as this is evidently better suited to Mr. Armstrong's ability than the absurd, but still interesting, picture of a mowing scene, or a like subject here, a year or two ago, which was rich in colour, but was pervaded by false sentiment, and marred by innumerable affectations of design, besides astounding signs of defective technical training" (766).
The critic of The Illustrated London News also noted the similarity between the two works: "Hanging as a pendant to this, in the Lecture-Room, is another decorative figure, by Mr. Armstrong, A Girl Watching a Tortoise (1054), which, though less complete in modeling, and less well balanced in the disposition of light and dark colours, has passages of much elegance" (470). A reviewer from The Architect also compared Armstrong's painting with that of Moore's: "The same ambition has impelled Mr. Armstrong into a really fine decorative work, Girl Watching a Tortoise (1054), a rather long drawn out, slightly veiled nude form, swathed in transparent white drapery, and set amid alabaster walls, green and saffron foliage and fruit, touches of rose scarlet, gold, and purple, in flowers that lie or grow about" (264).
Details. Left: "flowers that ... grow about." Right: The tortoise.
The Art Journal contradicted Stephens earlier assertion that decorative art was easy to produce and made much the same point that Whistler was later to make that, in art, it is the result that counts and not the amount of labour expended to achieve it:
"The last work we shall notice in this room is the fine decorative picture by T. Armstrong, called A Girl watching a Tortoise (1054). A critic writing about this design has thought fit to make the remark that such kind of decorative work is not so difficult as is generally believed. As if the value of work executed in the service of beauty were to be measured by its difficulty in execution, and not by its result. For own part we care very little whether such a picture as this by Mr. Armstrong is or is not produced with greater labour than the public knows of: it is enough for our purpose, that the artist here gives us a work with very beautiful qualities of decoration. The drawing of the figure is not perfect, but the arrangement of the different materials, both as regards design and color, leaves an impression of a distinct and individual artistic power" (200).
The Saturday Review compared these two decorative pictures to wall frescoes from classical times: "Among other signs of the times are a couple of large single figures hung as companions, the one Shells (936), by Mr. Albert Moore, the other A Girl Watching a Tortoise (1054), by Mr. Armstrong. The style and technique partake of the character of wall decorations as practised in former times. The handling is sketchy as a fresco, the chalky colour is pitched in a light key, the lines are studious of concords, the draperies are diaphanous, revealing the figure as in classic sculpture. We thank these painters for adding to the clever curiosities of the Exhibition; we can ill afford to lose works painted for the sake of an idea" (593).
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
"Fine Arts. The Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LXIV (May 16, 1874): 470.
"Paintings at the Royal Academy." The Architect XI (May 9, 1874): 264.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series XIII (1874): 197-201.
"The Royal Academy." The Saturday Review XXXVII (May 9, 1874): 592-93.
Stephens, Frederic George. "The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2432 (June 6, 1874): 766-67
Created 19 March 2023