A Dutch Windmill
Clara Montalba (1840-1929)
1885
Oil on panel
H 29.9 x W 18.9 cm.
Collection and image credit: Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums
Accession no. ABDAG004421
Bequeathed by Alexander Webster, 1921
Clara Montabla had exhibited a watercolour entitled Windmills at the Royal Society of Watercolours in 1883, and had been praised highly for her "inimitable studies" of such scenes, with the critic enthusing over "the delightful warm sunlight haze in which she so excels," and describing her "masterly sketches" in Holland (including Windmills) as "little poems in colour, light, and shadow" — serving to "sustain the repute of this lady artist" (873). It seems probable that she then worked up her favourite ones in oils. — Jacqueline Banerjee