Tender Thoughts. 1883. Oil on canvas; 28 ½ x 36 ½ inches (72.5 x 92.7 cm). Private collection. © 2019 Christie's Images Limited, shown here by kind permission (right click disabled; not to be reproduced).
Tender Thoughts was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1883, no. 314. It is very unusual in Yeames's ouevre because it is basically a "subjectless" picture concerned only with beauty and obviously influenced by the Aesthetic Movement. Even the decorative accessories, including the furniture and the green ceramic pot, suggest Aestheticism. While the women in most Aesthetic Movement paintings are clad in classical or quasi-medieval gowns, the woman's style of dress in this painting is quite exotic and yet indeterminate, perhaps being Oriental in origin.
F. G. Stephens in his review of the Royal Academy exhibition in The Athenaeum liked the picture but not its loose handling: "The richly dressed lady in Mr. Yeames's Tender Thoughts (314) has a soft and sweet expression, but the picture is somewhat loosely handled" (675). A reviewer for The Portfolio noted how Yeames had abandoned his usual historical subject matter: "Mr. Yeames has forsaken his usual line to paint a single figure picture of an Oriental beauty" (105). Harry Quilter, the critic for The Spectator, noted the similarity of this work to paintings by Frederic Leighton: "Mr. Yeames has taken a fancy to imitate the President, and sends a pensive young woman, who looks like an unwashed Leighton" (576). The British Journal of Photography found it charming: " Mr. W. F. Yeames' Tender Thoughts (No. 314) is a figure study charming alike in conception and execution" (278).
Bibliography
"Art. Royal Academy." The Spectator LVI (5 May 1883): 576-78.
Blackburn, Henry. Academy Notes. Issue IX. London: Chatto and Windus, 1883. 33.
Christian, John. Fine Victorian Pictures, Drawings and Watercolours. London: Christie's, November 8, 1996. lot 71, 78-79. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-226391
Quilter, Harry. "Art Chronicle." The Portfolio XIV (1883): 104-05.
"The Royal Academy." The British Journal of Photography XXX (18 May 1883): 278-79.
Stephens, Frederic George. "The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2900 (26 May 1883): 673-75.
Created 2 September 2023