Mrs. Newton asleep in a Conservatory Chair by James Tissot, 1836-1902

Mrs. Newton asleep in a Conservatory Chair

James Tissot, 1836-1902

Signed

Oil on canvas

20 1/2 X 17 1/2 inches, 52 x 44.5 cm

1881-82

Provenance: Leicester Galleries

[See commentary below]

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Commentary by Hilary Morgan

Some five years after Tissot's arrival in London in the summer of 1871, he met Kathleen Newton, a hauntingly beautiful Irish divorcée. Little is known of her personality, but as Jane Abdy writes, 'What Tissot's work tells us about Mrs. Newton is that he was obsessed by her gentle beauty and made her the subject of almost every painting for the six years of their liaison. ... they were deeply in love, and this is borne out by Tissot's despairing attempts to find her again through mediums and seances after herdeath, whenhecontinued to paint herfor two or three years as if she were still alive.' As Michael Wentworth notes, the arrival of Kathleen Newton into Tissot's life gave his art a focus:

As Tissot devoted himself to recording the beauty, and to some degree the psychology, of his mistress, there is often a direct physical confrontation with the spectator, who may be thought of as the artist himself, and what remains of narrative is now simply the result of the involvement of the viewer with the painted world.

This work represents a very personal image of Kathleen Newton, and is very different in feeling from his larger finished works of the period in its demonstration of his French roots. It is a free oil sketch and demonstrates Tissot's skill in applying paint while working spontaneously from life. He first of all applied an ochre glaze to the prepared white canvas, and then sketched with broad brushstrokes onto this ground, using the background as part of the finished surface. The impasto of the white brush strokes are in contrast to the thinly glazed darker colours, and the technical skill with which he has painted the knee under the dress with the minimum brushstrokes, shows him to be a supremely sophisticated artist.

This work relates to other images of the same date. The wicker armchair in which Kathleen Newton is sitting was amongst Tissot's favourite studio props. A similar view of the conservatory at 17 Grove End, SaintJohn's Wood, can be seen in a trial proof for an engraving entitled 'Femme a la Fenetre' (circa 1875, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.)

A similar later sketch, painted circa 1881 to 1882 is in the Musée Baron Martin.

References

Abdy, Jane. Tissot, his London Friends and Visitors. In London, Barbican Art Gallery, 1984. James Tissot, (catalogue of the exhibition)

Isetan Museum of Art. James Tissot, (catalogue of the exhibition by Michael Wentworth). Japan, Tokyo, 1988.

P>Morgan, Hilary, and Nahum, Peter. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites And Their Century. Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 134.

Last modified 10 August 2001