A Girl Watching a Tortoise (reduced version)

Thomas Armstrong

1873

Oil on canvas

28 x 14½ inches (71 x 37 cm)

Private Collection

This is a reduced version of the principal picture, differing in minor details, which sold at Sotheby's, London, on June 18, 1985, lot 56. This smaller version features a different model to the principal oil version. The yellow shawl covers the area of her breasts and her drapery is not quite so diaphanous. The magpie holding a peacock feather in its mouth is larger and the position of the bench it is sitting on has been shifted to be slightly higher. Red drapery cascading over the arm of the bench has replaced the red flowers in a basket in the major version. The bearded irises present in the right foreground of the larger picture have disappeared.

In painting a similar but modified version of his single figure compositions Armstrong was again following the lead of his friend Albert Moore in his compositions such as A Reader and The End of the Story. — Dennis T. Lanigan