The Lesson, by Marianne Stokes, née Preindlsberger (1855-1927). 1923. Oil on canvas. H 60 x W 50.1 cm. Collection: Walker Art Gallery, accession no. WAG 764, purchased in 1923. Image kindly made available on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
Here is Stokes painting in oil rather then tempera again but with the same eye for expressions (a solemn one on the little girl, so characteristic, both of Stokes herself, and of a small child being put through her paces) and the same sharp details. Again,it is a recognisably rustic scene, a carpenter's workshop, and although the focus is on a little girl, it is bound to bring to mind some images of the boy Jesus in similar surroundings. What is also characteristic here is the play of light coming through the open window, which Stokes was so good at capturing. The quaint costumes mark this out as one of the subjects from Stokes's travels. These are always such an attractive feature of her work. Here, she explained in a letter, "the child's outfit is typical of the area around Les Haudères" in the Swiss Alps (Evans 132). — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Evans, Magdalen. Utmost Fidelity: The Painting Lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes. Clifton, Bristol: Sansom, 2009.
The Lesson. Art UK. Web. 8 June 2023.
Created 8 June 2023