FRANCES MACDONALD MACNAIR (SCOTTISH 1874-1921) ‡
‘GIRL WITH BLUE BUTTERFLIES'
£100,000
Auction: 7 September 2012 at 15:00 BST
Description
signed and dated lower centre right FRANCES E MACDONALD 1898, watercolour
Dimensions
43.5 x 100cm (17 x 39½in)
Footnote
Provenance:
Possibly Charles Macdonald Esq., the artist's brother and by descent to his daughter, Mrs. L. A. Dunderdale
Mrs M. Mackenzie
The Fine Art Society, London, 1979
Sotheby's, New York, 13th June 1980, lot 459
Barry Friedman Ltd., New York
Exhibited:
Glasgow, Glasgow Museums and Art Gallery, 'Mackintosh Watercolours', 1978-79 no. viii
Tokyo, Japan, International Symbolist Exhibition, Parko Department Store, 1983
New York, Barry Friedman Ltd., 'Vision and Reveries - Symbolist Works on Paper', 1982
Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery and Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery 'Doves and Dreams: The Art of Frances Macdonald and J. Herbert MacNair', 12th August 2006 - 22nd April 2007, exhib. ref. W14
Literature:
Billcliffe, Roger 'Mackintosh Watercolours', London 1978, pp. 72-3, catalogue viii (as 'Ophelia')
Helland, Janice 'The Studios of Frances and Margaret Macdonald', Manchester, 1996 pp. 150, 183 n.15, 187 n.109
Robertson, Pamela (Edit.) 'Doves and Dreams: The Art of Frances Macdonald and J. Herbert MacNair', Hampshire 2006, pp. 38, 151 and 153, exhib. ref. W14, cat. ill. 71, ill. pp. 80-81(detail)
Note:
The title comes from Robertson and is descriptive - no work with this title has been identified. It has also been known as Ophelia (given by Billcliffe solely due to the subject matter) and Helland has suggested that it is the same work as exhibited in the Sandon Studios, Liverpool, in 1912, as lent by Charles Reilly. This latter suggestion seems most improbable as Frances was otherwise exhibiting contemporaneous pictures at the Sandon and was very unlikely to ask Reilly for a painting that was very different in style from other exhibits in the exhibition. In addition, there is no link between Reilly, Professor of Architecture in Liverpool, and Mrs Mackenzie, the first documented owner of the painting who believed it to have been in her family for many years and from whom The Fine Art Society acquired the painting.
This is the largest of a group of very fine watercolours produced by Macdonald in 1898 (see also lots 30-32 & 111); it is, in fact, the largest painting, as opposed to designs for murals etc. produced by the artist. The subject is unidentified but it falls firmly into the group of works exploring fairy tales or similar allegorical subjects. The ghoulish figures and malevolent plant forms of the period 1893-96 have been firmly banished, although Macdonald retained an eye for the darker side of fairy tales, as in her 'The Frog Prince' (lot 30). Robertson suggests a link with Maris's Girl and Butterflies, then in a Glasgow collection (now Burrell Collection) and also with the Pre-Raphaelite work of Burne-Jones, which has been noted several times. Whatever its sources, the painting marks a major transition for Macdonald away from illustration to works made for exhibition.