A Rose and her Three Daughters, by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, ROI, RWS 1872-1945

A Rose and her Three Daughters

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, ROI, RWS 1872-1945

Exhibited 1832

Watercolour

36.5 x 26 cm.; 14¼ x 10¼ in.

Signed with a monogram

Ex-Sotheby's

Provenance: Lady Rose Constance Leveson-Gower neé Bowes-Lyon, Countess Granville and elder sister to the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. See below for commentary.

Exhibited London, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours

Sotheby's note: Lady Rose was sometimes known as the Rose of Glamis

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Pencil Study of a Rose Bush in Flower and Lady Gay Rose (discussion of earlier depictions of roses)

Image and caption material added by Jacqueline Banerjee, with thanks to Sotheby's, except for the date when it was exhibited, kindly supplied by Pamela Gerrish Nunn. See commentary below.

Commentary by Pamela Gerrish Nunn

Demonstrating an enduring theme in Fortescue-Brickdale’s output, A Rose and her three Daughters was shown at the winter exhibition of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1932. It appears to have been purchased from the show by Lady Rose Leveson-Gower, sister of the then Queen (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother). By this time, this would count as a minor work, and it could well have been the by-product of a now unknown composition of 1927, A Bed of Roses. Equally, there is no knowing whether it had been made many years earlier but came in useful as an exhibit at this time, when her deteriorating eyesight made this kind of work sadly unattainable any longer for the ageing artist.

Bibliography

"British and Continental Paintings/Lot 115." Sotheby's. Web. 24 October 2022.

Created 24 October 2022