Lantern Light by Marianne Stokes, née Preindlsberger (1855-1927). 1888. Oil on canvas. H 82.5 x W 102 cm. Collection: Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance. Accession no. PEZPH: 2011.51, purchased. Downloaded from Art UK, where it is available for reproduction on a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC BY-ND).
The Art Fund, which helped the Penlee House Gallery to buy this work from Sotheby's in 2011, has a useful note on it, pointing out that Marianne and Adrian "played leading roles in the St Ives artists’ colony," but that although "they are not normally listed among the Newlyn School, Marianne’s paintings of the 1880s and early 1890s bear all the hallmarks of Newlyn School works in their subjects, composition and handling of paint." Marianne Stokes is, in fact, often described as a member of the colony of painters at Newlyn, but this is not accurate. As this note makes clear, she and her husband were members of the St Ives one. Indeed, here, in what is described by the Fund as a "key work" in the "rural realism style," we see "a young boy helping out at the St Ives Arts Club (where Marianne was a member) by polishing the glasses." As the note says, the painting " expertly captures the light from the glowing lantern glinting on the glassware." — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Evans, Magdalen. Utmost Fidelity: The Painting Lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes. Clifton, Bristol: Sansom, 2009.
Lantern Light." Art Fund. Web. 6 June 2023.
Lantern Light. Art UK. Web. 6 June 2023.
Created 6 June 2023