Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Robert Polhill Bevan, 1865–1925, British
Title:
Study of a Woman Sewing
Date:
undated
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor, gouache and black chalk on medium, slightly textured, beige laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 13 11/16 × 17 inches (34.8 × 43.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Bequest of Joseph F. McCrindle, Yale LLB 1948
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2009.9.101
Gallery Label:
Better known as a painter of horses, market scenes, and landscapes, Robert Bevan produced very few portraits. This study for a portrait of his daughter, Edith Halina, was made at the artist’s London house in 1917. Although a thimble is visible on her finger, Bevan omits the needle and thread both in the drawing and the painting so as not to disrupt the clean design of the compositions. Although the nineteen-year old Halina is shown engaged in the domestic act of sewing, “Halszka,” as she was known to family and friends, went on to live a cosmopolitan life with her future husband, C. W. Baty, a classical scholar and headmaster of the King’s School Chester. In 1946, based in Vienna, he helped to rebuild the Austrian education system after the war. Later in his career, he was Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools and wrote several Latin textbooks. Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)