Beads by Albert Joseph Moore, ARWS (1841-1893). 1875. Oil on canvas. 11 3/4 x 20 5/16 inches (29.8 x 51.6 cm). Collection of National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, accession no. NG109. Image courtesy of National Gallery of Scotland reproduced for purposes of non-commercial academic research. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Study for Beads. 1875. Oil on canvas. 11 3/4 x 19 1/4 inches (29.8 x 48.9 cm). Collection: the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, accession no. B1982.10. Image courtesy of Yale Center for British Art via Art UK, under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero licence (CCO). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Beads was exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1876, no. 258. It is one of three finished paintings of the same subject, virtually identical in size, but with vastly different colour schemes and minor adjustments to their design. The other two paintings were entitled Apples and A Sofa, both of which are in private collections.
Apples. 1875. Oil on canvas. 11 ½ x 20 inches (29 x 51 cm). Private collection, image © 2002 Christie's Images Limited. [Right click disabled; not to be reproduced.]
According to A. L. Baldry, A Sofa was the first of this series to be painted and was executed in 1875 while the other two were completed in 1876. In fact, however, all three are dated 1875. There are also some highly finished oil studies for these compositions, such as the one at the Yale Centre for British Art (accession no. B1982.10) for Beads and the oil sketch for Apples at the York Art Gallery (object no. 20000402). There are also individual figure paintings derived from the composition. Tate Britain, for instance, owns Moore's A Sleeping Girl, which is a study of the maiden to the right of the composition (ref. no. TO4877). All the principal paintings feature two girls in classical draperies sleeping at either end of a large soda. The one on the left is reclining propped up on a pillow with her legs on the sofa while the one on the right has her right leg tucked underneath her and her left leg on the ground. Only the girl on the right wears a cap. The variations in the pictures are minor except for the colour harmonies. For example, only in A Sofa does the girl on the right have a red coral necklace around her neck and only in Apples are two apples seen on the floor to the right. Richard Green has discussed the completely different colour harmonies between the three principal versions: "A Sofa had a pale yellow couch with orange cushions covered by brown gauze, a brown wall and floor with brown vases. In Apples the couch is green with yellow cushions covered by blue and black gauze; the wall is brown, the floor, black, and the jars blue. In Beads the couch is cream with blue and orange cushions covered by brown gauze; the wall is blue, the floor brown, and the jars gray" (22-23).
Robyn Asleson has described Moore's intention in painting these different versions:
These paintings dramatize the irrelevance of "subject" in Moore's pursuit of purely aesthetic questions. The cartoons that he reworked on these occasions were merely convenient templates for new chromatic combinations. In this respect, the figures in Moore's paintings have been likened "to the squares of Josef Albers or the recurrent shapes of Mark Rothko." The comparison is useful not only for the similarities but also for the differences it suggests between the artists. All three adopted thematically mundane but aesthetically perfect linear arrangements as the basis for experiments in colour. But whereas Albers and Rothko grounded their experiments in radically simplified geometry, Moore's use of line was as analytically complex as his use of colour…. However, by choosing to express abstract, analytical principles in the representational figurative language of his own day, Moore caused himself to be misunderstood, now and in his lifetime. Attention has always been distracted from the true intentions of his art by the beguiling feminine forms in which he represented them. Moreover, the devalued status of "feminine" attributes (to include beauty) has led even critics cognizant of Moore's fundamentally decorative purpose to question whether it constitutes an adequate aim for art…. Yet for all their engagement in abstract aesthetic concerns, Moore's sofa pictures also figure among his most sensuous evocations of the female form. [130-33]
Moore's pictures of reclining girls on a sofa present a recurrent theme in his oeuvre. The first idea for such a composition appears to be his mosaic panel design, entitled St. Patrick, intended for the central hall of the Houses of Parliament but never executed. In the foreground of this drawing from 1869 are two female figures in classical draperies sleeping at either end of a large sofa (Hedberg 148). The first painted example appears to be A Palm Fan that he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1875, and he continued to paint such a subject in works like Dreamers of 1882, Reading Aloud of 1884, and A Summer Night of 1890. Green has compared the composition of these sofa pictures like Beads and Apples to Symphony in White No. III by Moore's close friend James Whistler, a work that he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867 (23). Green feels that both Moore's and Whistler's pictures were ultimately influenced by the seated or reclining figures among the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.
Contemporary Reviews of Beads
A reviewer for The Academy praised the bold design of the picture: "Mr. Albert Moore contributes one of his choicest bits of classical dolce far niente, under the title of Beads; an arbitrary title enough, the 'beads' being merely a small accessory object, lying in the left-hand corner of the floor." However, the same critic noted, "The real subject is two young Greek beauties dozing in the hot noon, indolent and sprightly, on a sofa. The slumbering actions are of bold design, delicately touched into grace: one damsel has her legs crossed, the knees raised in an upward angle; the other leans her head on her protruded right arm, the left hand lying lax behind the flank" (442). The Art Journal critic also found much to like: "Close to these two pictures hangs a little decorative work by A. Moore, representing two girls sleeping — one at each end — on an antique couch; it is called in the catalogue Beads (258), and for composition, general suavity of line, and the consenting droop of the sleeping forms, it will well repay examination" (261). It was left to F.G. Stephens in The Athenaeum to complain that athough the work was admirable, Moore repeated himself too much: "There is, in Gallery IV, a little picture, in no prominent place, but yet by a painter of considerable distinction, although the scope of his powers is somewhat limited; at least it would seem so, for while Mr. A. Moore is no mannerist, he repeats himself frequently. Nevertheless, his works are always precious, for they are informed with love of beauty, and zest for the purest luxury of colour, and they afford consummate illustrations of the charm secured by subtle harmonies of line" (640). The Builder also deplored the repetition in Moore's submissions: "Mr. Albert Moore sends one little work Beads (258), so dainty in colour and execution as to make us wish there were more subject in it, and then that we had half a dozen instead of one. But it is undeniable that Mr. Moore repeats himself too much" (450).
W.M. Rossetti in The Spectator, noting that Beads was "a small work," and the only one Moore exibited that year, praised its decorative qualities, particularly its colour: "The figures are clothed, as is the manner of this artist, in soft, semi-transparent draperies, the warm flesh-tints just showing through the folds. The rare dexterity with which Mr. Moore has managed the few pieces of positive colour, as instanced in the yellow and blue of the sofa cushions, is worthy of all praise. Indeed, as a work of purely decorative art, this picture is the most perfect in the Exhibition. The figures and draperies are most graceful, the colour very pleasing, and the painting both easy and good" (591).
Bibliography
Asleson, Robyn. Albert Moore. London: Phaidon, 2000, 130-33.
Baldry, Alfred Lys. Albert Moore: His Life and Works. London: George Bell and Sons, 1894, 45-46.
Beads. Art UK. Web. 31 August 2026.
Beads (A Study). Art UK. Web. 31 August 2026.
Christian, John. Victorian Dreamers. Masterpieces of Neo-Classical and Aesthetic Movements in Britain. Tokyo: The Tokyo Shimbun, 1989, cat. 49 and cat. 50, 128.
Green, Richard. Albert Moore and his Contemporaries. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Laing Art Gallery, 1972, cats. 47 & 48, 22-23.
Hedberg, Gregory. "Albert Moore." The Victorian High Renaissance. London: Lund Humphries, 1978, cat. 76, 148-49.
Important British Art. London: Christie's (12 June 2002): lot 45. 114-17. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-3935129
Reynolds, Graham. Victorian Painting, London: Studio Vista, 1966. 121-22.
Rossetti, William Michael. "Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator XLIX (6 May 1876): 590-91.
"The Royal Academy." The Academy IX (6 May 1876): 441-42.
"The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Art Journal New Series XV (1876): 261-64.
"Royal Academy Pictures." The Builder XXXIV (13 May 1876): 449-52.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2532 (6 May 1876): 640-41.
Created 31 August 2026