(Wimbledon 1861–1922 London) “Eighty and eighteen”, signed, dated J. W. Godward (18)98, old exhibition label on the reverse, oil on canvas, 38 x 81 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance: Purchased from the artist in Liverpool in 1898 by Bernhard Strauß and his daughter Irma Strauß (grandmother of the current owner);

Private family property since that date, Germany.

Exhibited: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, autumn exhibition 1898, (203)

The figure of a balding eighty year old man sits lengthwise on a tiger skin on the left side of a marble bench in profile to the right with his feet on the skin. He is eating pomegranate seeds as he carefully watches a pretty dark haired Roman girl on the right side of the bench. She is presumably his granddaughter who is awaiting a rendezvous with a young man. We might believe that he is the chaperone for the young girl who looks directly at the viewer as if bored by his company and embarrassed at his presence. She is dressed in pink with golden ribbons. Beyond can be seen red oleander and the Mediterranean Sea with the Isle of Ischia behind.

This is the only elderly person to appear in a Godward picture. He did paint several portraits of older people, but no genre paintings. The picture was painted in the artist’s studio at 410 Fulham Road, Fulham, London. With The Pergola oil this canvas was his only two multifigured painting of 1898. This year he painted sixteen major oils, not including oil studies, and had by the end of the year was beginning to make a name for himself.

John William Godward came from a respectable middle class London family, but rejected his parents’ ambitions for him in order to follow an artistic career. Trained at first as an architectural draughtsman and supported by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, he exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1887 onwards. He set up an artists’ studio in London with his colleague Henry Ryland. Journeys to Italy followed, taking him to Rome in 1919. However, he was forced to return to England on health grounds, and there he committed suicide in 1922.

We are grateful to Dr. Vern G. Swanson for his assistance in cataloguing this work which will be included in the extended edition of the catalogue raisonné of John William Godward’s work: The Eclipse of Classicism, Woodbridge 1997.

Provenance: Purchased from the artist in Liverpool in 1898 by Bernhard Strauß and his daughter Irma Strauß (grandmother of the current owner); Private family property since that date, Germany. Exhibited: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, autumn exhibit