A Wardrobe [Venus], by Albert Joseph Moore, ARWS (1841-1893). 1867. Oil on canvas. 39 ½ x 19 inches (100.3 X 48.3 cm). Collection of Johannesburg Art Gallery. Image courtesy of Johannesburg Art Gallery reproduced for purposes of non-commercial academic research. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
A.L. Baldry claims Moore exhibited A Wardrobe at the Royal Academy in 1867, but it is not listed as such in Algernon Graves' book The Royal Academy of Arts; a complete dictionary of contributors and their work. It therefore seems unlikely that it really was exhibited at that time. The work features a full-length half-size female nude female figure, the first of Moore's full-length figures of standing female nudes.
Baldry has described the work and its intentions:
In this picture he presented a summary, as it were, of his future practice. Deliberately divested of any suggestion of dramatic effect, almost without incident, absolutely impersonal in motive and intention, this work is simply an assertion of purely decorative principles. The nudity of the figure has to do with nothing but the necessity of securing an assemblage of exquisite lines, and with the advisability of using the delicate tones of fair flesh as the main facts in a scheme of flesh-colour, blue, and white. It was quite characteristic of the artist that he should have selected for a polemical picture the class of subject which has been used from time immemorial by young painters to force the fact of their cleverness upon the world; and it is certainly what might have been expected of him, that, having made such a choice, he should proceed to justify it in a manner altogether novel and unconventional. The success of his effort is beyond question. More perhaps than any other of his works A Wardrobe attains to the unconsciousness of Greek art, and the unemotional perfection of pure aestheticism…. In colour A Wardrobe is throughout extremely gentle. The pale creamy skin of the youthful but well-developed figure is accentuated by the masses of transparent white drapery, falling in ample folds behind it. The background is a wall of darker flesh colour, while the upper part of the picture is filled with a quaintly designed cupboard painted in simple patterns, and which by its definite lines gives strength and power to the composition of the picture. On the woman's head is a pale blue cap, and her left hand holds a string of blue beads. Her feet are set upon a leopard skin. The key in which the whole is pitched is remarkably high and brilliant, and no attempt has been made to gain effectiveness by exaggeration of shadows. Nevertheless, the rounding of the limbs and torso is complete and expressive, and the pervading refinement of the whole design never approaches indefiniteness nor degenerates into flatness. [33-34]
A Wardrobe show echoes of Moore's Pomegranates of 1866. The inlaid abstract decorations of the wardrobe, as well as its handles and hinges, resemble those seen on the cabinet of the painting shown the previous year. The same leopard skin on the floor appears in both paintings. In turn, Robyn Asleson points out that the solitary standing figure points the way forward to Azaleas of the following year (104). Asleson also points out how revolutionary Moore was in his treatment of the nude figure, despite the obvious influence of classical sculpture on his treatment of the female body: "Unlike Watts and Leighton, Moore did not use classical mythology to justify the nudity of his figure; indeed, the lack of literary reference in his title A Wardrobe makes his representation of an unclothed woman all the more astonishing for its time. The unease engendered by the implication of looking at a real woman, rather than a mythical goddess, is evidenced by the fact that subsequent purchasers insisted on calling the picture Venus at the Bath" (104).
Bibliography
Asleson, Robyn. Albert Moore. London: Phaidon, 2000. 104-05.
Baldry, Alfred Lys. Albert Moore: His Life and Works. London: George Bell and Sons, 1894, 33-34.
Green, Richard. Albert Moore and his Contemporaries. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Laing Art Gallery, 1972. 15.
Staley, Allen. The New Painting of the 1860s, Between the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. 146-47.
Created 25 August 2026