Woman with Calla Lilies [Woman with Lilies] by Thomas Armstrong, 1876. Oil on canvas; 72 x 36 inches (183 x 91.5 cm). Collection of Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, accession no. TWCMS:B8119.
This was the second of the two decorative pictures Armstrong painted for the dining room of the home of Thomas "Eustace" Smith and his wife Martha Mary "Eustacia" Dalrymple at 52 Prince's Gate in London. Unlike A Girl Watching a Tortoise this painting does not appear to have been exhibited, perhaps because its presence was crucially needed to complete the dining room's long-delayed decoration. The Smiths' mansion had been constructed in the early 1850s between Hyde Park and South Kensington and was close to that of another celebrated art collector, the Liverpool shipowner Frederick Leyland, who lived at 49 Prince's Gate. Smith was a Tyneside shipowner who entered parliament as an "advanced liberal" in 1868. After Eustace Smith bought the house the couple proceeded to decorate it in an Aesthetic Movement style. The Smiths owned a distinguished collection of pictures by Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, G. F. Watts, Albert Moore, Val Prinsep, and Alphonse Legros. The Smiths' other home was Gosforth House near Newcastle.
This scheme was the most important decorative collaboration between Armstrong and his friend, the architect/designer George Aitchison, although the two did work together on other projects. Armstrong's two paintings for the dining room combined the delicate effects of colour with strength of rendering. In the dining room the two painting were set into walls that were gilded after a slightly indented pattern had been impressed upon them. Armstrong acknowledged this "to be a most successful background for both people and pictures" (Dakers and Robbins, Aitchison, 73). The American writer Julian Hawthorne recalled: "The wainscot was high and plain, but was really inlaid with a delicate design of pearl and ivory scroll-work, the walls above were dull gold, with several large canvases set into them" (135). The Builder considered the design of this room "irreproachable in taste as far as it goes" (501). Aitchison's plan of decoration for the rest of house was extensive. Besides his work on the dining room he also worked on the staircase, the large and small drawing rooms on the first floor, and the boudoir. He made extensive use of dark wooden panelling relieved by inlaid ivory and mother of pearl. The frieze in Eustacia Smith's boudoir was by Walter Crane and depicted white cockatoos with lemon and orange crests on a gold ground, connected by fanciful scroll-work in bronze green and red. The remainder of Aitchison's scheme for the boudoir consisted of reddish-orange walls with flowers picked out in gold, a black wooden dado inlaid with a floral pattern in ivory and mother-of-pearl, and a decorative plaster ceiling with a large central panel of foliage in low relief. In 1887 the Smiths sold 52 Prince's Gate to Alexander Henderson, later Baron Farington. In addition to the house Henderson bought all of the pictures owned by the Smiths, including Armstrong's two pictures for the dining room.
Woman with Calla Lilies features a dark-haired model in semi-transparent classical garb with a blue shawl draped around her right shoulder and holding a large purple vase with white calla lilies in her right hand and balanced on her right thigh. Her right leg is raised upon a marble step and a marble wall is in the background. Unlike the background of A Girl Watching a Tortoise, which is a lemon orchard, this composition's backgound is the branches of an olive tree. Like its companion piece white flowering shrubs are in the midground but in the foreground are calla lilies instead of bearded irises. A small lizard climbs the wall to the right of the maiden.
Bibliography
"Notes on Architecture at the Royal Academy." The Builder XXXVI (May 18, 1878): 500-02.
"Important Victorian & British Impressionist Art." London: Christie's (July 11, 2013): lot 2.
Dakers, Caroline and Daniel Robbins. George Aitchison. Leighton's Architect Revealed. London: Leighton House Museum, 2011.
Hawthorne, Julian. Shapes That Pass: Memories of the Old Days. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928
Lamont, L. M. Thomas Armstrong, C.B. A Memoir. London: Martin Secker, 1912, 15-16.
Created 19 March 2023