The Mandolin (The Mandolin Player)

James Smetham, 1821-89

c. 1865

Watercolor and Gouache on paper

18 ¼ x 14 ¼ inches (46.5 x 37 cm).

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

This is a simplified version of the subject which preceded the oil version. In a letter to William Davies of December 7, 1865 Smetham mentions making a drawing the size of an intended oil picture of a figure with an Indian lute in hand. Ellen Smith was again the model. Casteras feels this “seems a tamer, less sexualized permutation of the Rossettian female type of ‘stunner’ that dominated that artist’s work in the 1860s” (86).