"Jean, Jeanne and Jeannette" by Elizabeth Adela Forbes, ARWS (1859-1912)

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Jean, Jeanne and Jeannette

Elizabeth Adela Forbes (1859-1912)

1892

Oil on canvas

H 55.6 x W 45.4 cm

Collection: Manchester Art Gallery

Accession no: 1913.12

Purchased at Christies, 1913

This pleasant little rural scene came out of the artist's visit to Cancale in Brittany, and was noticed by William Pater (see below).

Image downloaded, and caption and commentary added, by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge.]

Kindly made available on the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC BY-ND), via Art UK.

Commentary by Mrs Lionel Birch

From the visit to Cancale in the same year [1892] Mrs. Forbes brought back many sketches and pictures of Breton interiors and of peasant life. Among these, one was entitled “Jean, Jeanne, and Jeahnette,” in which the lines of the composition afforded by the bending figure of the girl seated on a barrow, and the form of the goat reaching up to nibble from her hand, are charming, and the artist has evidently delighted in rendering the quiet harmony of the silvery willow trees just beyond, with the lilac of the barrowful of clover ... Mrs. Forbes’ mind, large in grasp and penetrating in vision, pierces to the true secret of child-like charm, seeing far beyond the superficial prettiness with which art traditions have invested it.

The “half-humorous pathos” Walter Pater speaks of as pertaining to “the diminutive rounded shoulder of the child” is exquisitely felt and surely rendered. [69-70]

Bibliography

Birch, Mrs Lionel. Stanhope A. Forbes, ARA, and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, ARWS. London: Cassell, 1906. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Kahl/Austin Foundation. Web. 3 March 2021.

Created 3 March 2021