"The Mirror" by William Orpen (1878-1931)

The Mirror

Sir William Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA (1878-1931)

1900

Oil on canvas

Support: 508 x 406 mm; frame: 682 x 580 x 75 mm

Tate Gallery, Ref. N02940

Presented by Mrs Coutts Michie through the Art Fund in memory of the George McCulloch Collection 1913

According to the Tate's catalogue, Orpen's model here was Emily Scoble, to whom he was briefly engaged, and the setting was his own studio. [Commentary continues below.]

Text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee, with caption material from the Tate.

The Tate has kindly made this image available for re-use on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence. [Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

Again according to the catalogue, "the shallow pictorial depth and decorative, or 'aesthetic,' arrangement of objects is based on Whistler's famous portrait of his mother in profile," while the "circular mirror on the wall reflects the artist painting at his easel." The device of the mirror is thought to have been borrowed from Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, a fifteenth-century work which had been displayed at the National Gallery since 1843, and had attracted a good deal of attention.

Related Material

Discussion in the context of the 2017 exhibition at the National Gallery, "Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites"

Bibliography

"Sir William Orpen: The Mirror." Tate. Web. 23 October 2017.

Last modified 11 July 2021