Terms and Conditions
The artist, title and date of the work must be listed anywhere the image is reproduced:
John Longstaff
Lady in grey 1890
oil on canvas
(135.0 × 90.0 cm)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mr John H. Connell, 1914
Photo: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
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Lady in grey
1890
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
(135.0 × 90.0 cm)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mr John H. Connell, 1914
Gallery location
Gallery 7
Level 2, NGV Australia
About this work
John Longstaff was awarded the National Gallery School’s first travelling scholarship in 1887. Before sailing from Melbourne to Europe, where he joined a small group of Australian expatriate artists living in Paris, he married seventeen-year-old Rosa Louisa ‘Topsy’ Crocker, the subject of Lady in grey. The subtle tonalities of this work and its fashionable Japoniste theme are inspired by American painter James McNeill Whistler. At the time, artists across Europe were adopting elements of Japanese art as part of a new European aesthetic. Lady in grey was Longstaff’s first Parisian success and was hung in a prominent position ‘on the line’ (at eye level) at the 1890 Paris Salon.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Inscription
inscribed in grey paint u.l.: J Longstaff 1890
inscribed in brown paint u.l.: J Longstaff 90
Accession Number
657-2
Department
Australian Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation
Subjects (general)
Human Figures Portraits
Subjects (specific)
fans (costume accessories) hairstyles kimonos profiles (figures) seated figures three-quarter-length figures women (female humans)
Frame
Original, by John Thallon, Melbourne
Frame
The frame on Lady in grey is a well preserved example of this framing style, derived from the early Italian cassetta frame and seen in France in this form toward the end of the 1880s.2 It might also be associated with the Watts frame, which was a more contemporary predecessor, or the frames favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites. It becomes one of the standards of John Thallon and appears regularly through the ledger of 1888–1903. Though the painting was painted in Paris, it would appear it was framed some years later in Melbourne.3 Despite the damage to the veneer, this frame demonstrates an eye-catching relationship between frame and painting. It has been a reference point for the harmoniously aged appearance of frame surfaces. The painting and frame can be seen in a photograph from the Loan Exhibition of Australian Art at the National Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, April 1918. The style of frame was favoured, among others, by Frederick McCubbin.
Notes
1 Hilary Maddocks, ‘Picture Framemakers in Melbourne c. 1860–1930’ in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999.
2 See Camille Pissaro’s The effect of fog, 1888, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Eva Mendgen et al, In Perfect Harmony, Van Gogh Museum, 1995, p. 143. Other examples can be seen in John Milner, The Studios of Paris: The Capital of Art in the Late Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1988. In particular the reader is referred to Fig. 259, p. 207, Jean-Charles Cazin in his studio, photograph from c. 1895. The Studios of Paris offers a rich source of documentary evidence of framing practice in nineteenth-century France. The similarities between French frames of this period and frames that were being produced in Melbourne are striking.
3 The painting appears in only a slip on the wall of Longstaff's studio in the Grosvenor Chambers in a photograph from 1896.
Frame Details
Framemaker
John Thallon
Melbourne
Date
1896–81
Materials
The frame uses an imbricated laurel composition ornament on the inner border and oak veneer on the outer flat section. The veneer is butt-joined at the corners over a mitred wooden chassis, causing the veneer to rupture with shrinkage in the chassis. The frame is matte gilded throughout. The gilding on the veneered flat is on minimal preparation, allowing the grain of the timber to show. Bands at the centres and corners are burnished water gilding. The frame is sized with ormolu or glue, which is discoloured and cracked. There appears to be some chemical patination of the leaf border.
Frame Condition
Good original condition throughout. The veneer is split across the mitre of the supporting back frame.
Dimensions
168.0 x 123.0 x 7.5; sight 132.5 x 88.0 cm