Pensosa d'altrui by George Price Boyce

Pensosa d'altrui

George Price Boyce RWS (1826-1897)

Signed 'G.P. Boyce', dated '68-9

Watercolour on white paper

8 1/2 x 7 inches, 21.5 x 18 cm.

Inscribed on the verso on a label 'no 6', the title and 'George P. Boyce 10 Upper Cheyne Row Chelsea' and on another label in the same hand 'Light from the left hand!'

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Exhibited: London, Society of Painters in Watercolours (Old Watercolour Society), 1869, Summer Exhibition, number 280. Provenance: Mr. J.R. Davidson, 1869; John Wheeldon Barnes FSA; The Artist's Familly

Commentary by Hilary Morgan

In the 1860s, under the influence of Rossetti, Boyce produced a small number of figure paintings of this pensive type. Others were included in the 1987 Tate Gallery Exhibition. He often shared Rossetti's models, including Ellen Smith and Alexa Wilding. The sitter for this work was Mary Leslie (Mrs. Downing) who died tragically of consumption in 1871 only six months after her marriage. She regarded Boyce with gratitude and esteem and lie, respecting her dying wish, went to see her on her deathbed (Surtees, 1980). The watercolour was begun in 1868 and work continued in 1869. Boyce's diary records: January 9. [1869] Mary Leslie came to sit to me (ibid).

This watercolour was the sixth of six watercolours (explaining the number 6 on the backboard) Boyce exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society in the summer of 1869 and the only one which was not a landscape. He had sold it in advance of the exhibition, recording in his diary:

'1869, April 10. Mr. J.R. Davidson called to look at my drawings and bought my large "Bridewell Precincts" for £60 and the little head of Mary Leslie ("Pensiero [sic] d'altrui") for 20 guineas'(Surtees, 1980)

The reviewers of the exhibition concentrated on Boyce's landscape paintings, but his friend F.G. Stephens, art critic of the Athenaeum, mentioned 'Pensosa d'altrui' in the course of a long and enthusiastic notice of his works, although he had some reservations about the depiction of the girl's lap. According to Stephens the picture, 'a study of a girl's head, with a very nicely rendered expression of thoughtfulness deals much in manifold tints of blue'. He also described it as 'delicate in character and modelling' (Athenaeum, 8 May 1869).

The cryptic command on the backboard is explained by the fact that a right handed artist would find it most convenient to arrange his model and easel so that the light fell from the left. Boyce wished the viewer to see the work under similar conditions of light to those in which it was painted, thus increasing the impression of realism.

References

Athenaeum, 8th May 1869.

Morgan, Hilary and Nahum, Peter. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 141.

Surtees, V. (ed.). The Diaries of G.P. Boyce. Norwich: Real World, 1980

Last modified 18 January 2002