Fortunes. 1870. 44 ¼ x 96 in. (112.4 x 243.8 cm). Private Collection. In its lot essay, Christie's describes this as the prime version. © 2019 Christie's Images Limited, shown here by kind permission (right click disabled; not to be reproduced).
Fortunes is one of the first of the type of compositions that Leslie would become famous for, decorative pictures of beautiful young woman in the costumes of the eighteenth century. Meynell has quoted Leslie's reasons for painting such works: "My aim in art has always been to paint pictures from the sunny side of English domestic life, and as much as possible to render them cheerful companions to their possessors. The times are so imbued with turmoil and misery, hard work and utilitarianism, that innocence, joy, and beauty seem to be the most fitting subjects to render such powers as I possess useful to my fellow creatures" (125).
A critic for The Illustrated London News described Leslie's fondness for painting these "conversation pieces":
He usually passes this summer-time on the banks of the Thames, painting out of doors as much as possible. This fact affords some clue to the localities and sources whence Mr. Leslie derives the materials for those backgrounds of quaint, primly-trimmed old fashioned English gardens, which form such appropriate accessories to many of those subjects of female character and sentiment by which, perhaps, the artist is best known. These "conversation pieces," always gracefully conceived, and evincing a rare faculty for representing unsophisticated feminine beauty, afford charming glimpses into the domestic life of the last century, and constitute a specialty which the painter has made entirely his own. [214]
Fortune exists in two versions. The major version is in a private collection while the reduced replica is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The principal version was shown at the Royal Academy in 1870, no. 104, and then later at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, no. 123, lent by the collector William Waring. In the picture young women are casting flowers into a stream in order to predict their marital fortunes. When the picture was shown at the Royal Academy it was accompanied by these lines in the catalogue "For maiden tongues of love will talk, etc." taken from the poem "At the Brookside"
For maiden tongues of love will talk,
And all their fancies turn on love;
And when we pulled the tender stalk,
And the fair flowers about it wove,
And flung it in the tiny torrent,
"This he, and this is I," we cried,
"As fares her flowers by wind and current,
To each shall weal or woe betide."
The painting received favourable reviews when it was shown at the Royal Academy. The critic of The Art Journal thought this subject well suited to Leslie's style:
Fortunes (104), by G. D. Leslie, A.R.A., is a composition most fortunate and fascinating. A bevy of charming young maidens amuse themselves by tossing flowers into a running stream, to try their fortunes in love. It is a summer day, the air is balmy, the light silvery, and the hearts of these pretty girls, though touched possibly by tender passion, are happy as the day is long. The scene is well suited to the painter's style; he casts a soft silvery haze, as of sentimental reverie, over the landscape; figures, and grass, and trees, are brought into tender tones, and reduced to a certain placitude of pictorial effect. Quietude is in the painter's pictures uniformly maintained; silence is seldom broken; even here, among these girls, there is no chattering. The sentiment is that of love in idleness; the subject is treated with dreamy dalliance; gracefully and agreeably, even the colours have a sentimental hue which shuns positive intensity, and abhors decisive contrast. [163]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum noted, even prior to the picture's exhibition, that "Mr. G. D. Leslie is engaged on an unusually ambitious painting, more important than any he has yet essayed" (331) When the painting was shown at the Royal Academy he wrote:
"These pleasant memories will be revived by Fortunes (104). Groups of damsels are gathered in the garden, and on a rustic bridge over a watercourse. Four girls sit by the low wall of the pleasaunce at the side of the swift brooklet, a fifth and a child stand on the bridge: a basket of flowers is at the feet of the latter: from this they have cast full-blown blooms into the water, and in that mode of divination which is so ancient, and is still almost universal, essay to learn their nuptial fortunes; as the flowers sink, stay or swiftly swim, so is presumed to be their ladies' luck. The water has already prophesied ill of one questioner, for her rose has gone to a little cascade; another quickly floats along, its fate as yet undecided. Two damsels of the larger group sit on the wall: one wearing a white hat is gazing rather nervously at the roses in her lap; another, with a puppy on her knees, has yet not attained a desire for second-sight of matrimonial fortunes. A gold brunette, with amorous eyes, gazes over the shoulder of the last and peers in lazy luxury at the trial. Another, demure and earnest, sits on the grass with a damask rose in her lap, holding it steadily and anxiously. This is a charming picture – the faces are exquisite, richly varied in beauty and expressions; the attitudes are finally varied and always graceful; the colour is deliciously tender and warm. It is Mr. Leslie's best picture. [585]
The Builder liked the painting but felt the background would have gained from more height in order to include the sky: "There is something very charming in Mr. G. O. Leslie's [sic] Fortunes (104), a group of pretty girls watching the course of the roses which they throw into a little mill-stream at their feet, to indicate, by their prosperous or adverse voyage, the course of their own true loves. The picture would have gained by additional height, as the park scenery stretching behind gives a background of unbroken green, to the exclusion of the sky" (440). The reviewer for The Illustrated London News admired the picture but not without reservations because he feared Leslie was getting into a rut painting pictures of pretty girls in eighteenth-century costumes:
Turning to the Associates who have specially distinguished themselves, a foremost place must be awarded to Mr. Leslie for the delightful picture, the most important he has hitherto painted, entitled Fortunes (104). A bevy of young ladies of the last century are finding a summer afternoon's pastime in drawing auguries of their future lives and loves from the course of some roses which one of their number is dropping into the current of a rapid brooklet. The beauty and grace of the figures, despite their sameness, the brightness of the effect, and the appropriate landscape accessories, are charming in feeling and intention. Yet the work can scarcely be regarded as quite healthy and sound. The colouring inclines towards sickliness, the breadth borders on emptiness, and the refinement approaches weakness. A change from this class of subject is needed if the artist would avoid the danger of falling into a narrow, confirmed mannerism. [503]
Tom Taylor writing in The Portfolio was doubtful for different reasons. He felt this work, despite its popularity, showcased Leslie's want of more thorough artistic training:
"Mr. Leslie had not, till now, produced any figure on this scale, and showing his carefulness of study both in face, form, and drapery. It is, and remains to my mind, his most painter-like work [Celia's Arbour], even beside his largest and probably most popular composition exhibited last year, under the title of Fortunes, – a group of lovely English girls in a park watching flowers, emblematic of their fates in love, gliding down the stream. He has painted nothing so complicated in combination of figures and landscape as this picture. It illustrates both his merits and defects in a conspicuous way. The purity and beauty of the faces, the taste of the dresses, the grace of the figures and felicity of the grouping, with the amenity of the landscape, give it a charm which was widely and directly felt. The picture had always a crowd round it at the Exhibition; but, after acknowledging its delightful qualities, the critic was bound to admit that the forms wanted solidity, the color more force with its sweetness, and the figures, firmer and exacter drawing. [181]
The Walker Gallery version of Fortunes. 1870. Oil on canvas. 16 5/8 x 36 5/8 inches (42.2 x 93 cm). Collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, accession no WAG393. Kindly released by the gallery on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
The small version of this picture at the Walker Art Gallery is notably different from the principal version in the private collection, particularly in the significantly divergent fashions worn by the young ladies to the left of the composition. Although their poses remain similar, their dresses, hats, and even accessories like an umbrella are appreciably different between the two compositions. The trees in the background, the barrier between the meadow and stream, and the bridges depicted also differ significantly.
Bibliography
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LVI (14 May 1870): 503.
Lot Essay. Chrtistie's. Web. 8 August 2023.
Meynell, Wilfrid Ed. "G. D. Leslie, R.A." in Some Modern Artists and Their Work. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1883, 124-131.
Morris, Edward. Victorian & Edwardian Paintings in the Walker Art Gallery & at Sudley House. London: HMSO Publications, 1996, 280-281.
"The New Associates of the Royal Academy. George Dunlop Leslie A.R.A." The illustrated London News LII (19 February 1868): 214.
"Pickings at the Royal Academy." The Builder XXVIII (4 June 1870): 439-40.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series IX (1 June 1870): 161-72.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2218 (30 April 1870): 583-85.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Pictures for the Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2210 (5 March 1870): 330-31.
Taylor, Tom. "English Painters of the Present Day. XVII. – George D. Leslie, A.R.A. The Portfolio I (1870): 177-182.
Created 8 August 2023