"An Eastern Gown" by William Orpen (1878-1931)

An Eastern Gown

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

1906

Oil on canvas

H 89 x W 73.5 cm

Atkinson Art Gallery Collection; accession no. SOPAG: 777

Gift from Mrs Jacomb-Hood, 1934

See below for commentary

Text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee, with caption material from the Atkinson Gallery, Southport. Image reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-NC-SA).

According to Bruce Arnold, Orpen's model here and in "at least" two other portraits was Flossie Burnett, a young professional model in London. He arranged for her to sit for him in Dublin as well. Since he also painted her nude, this, says Arnold, is "the most demure" of the works — but, he adds, "the least successful, though it does give us the best portrait of Flossie" (178). Rather unsurprisingly, in view of her nude modelling, her revealingly flimsy "Eastern Gown" here, and her attractions, Orpen is thought to have slept with her in the summer of 1906, around the time he was painting her, in this way taking a step towards "sexual liberation" from his wife (Arnold 181). Orpen's works often feature mirrors. How do we see ourselves? The mirror here may suggest a degree of narcissism, but more likely a degree of self-scrutiny, which is not at all the same thing.

Bibliography

Arnold, Bruce. Orpen: Mirror to an Age. London: Cape, 1981.

Created 11 July 2021