The author would like to thank Charlotte Gere for her invaluable assistance with identifying the traditional costumes depicted in this painting.
The Love Letter, by G. A. Storey R.A. (1834-1919). 1861. Oil on canvas; 23 1/2 x 19 5/8 inches (59.8 x 49.7 cm). Private collection. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Storey's early work was strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites but in the late 1850s he fell more under the influence of Charles Robert Leslie and began to paint more figurative and narrative genre pictures. Storey had first met Leslie in 1851 at a time when Storey was just embarking on his career as an artist. The Love Letter is an intermediate work as he was leaving his Pre-Raphaelite period behind but before moving towards his works influenced by Dutch seventeenth-century painting that brought him better financial success. As Storey himself noted about his career: "In my own art I had tried the sad, the sentimental, the historical, and works of high aim, such as Saints and Holy Families, besides landscapes and nude figures, all with very modified success, as far as salary went" (339).
This work, showing a young woman apparently receiving a love letter delivered by a friend, does not appear to have been shown in one of the usual London exhibition venues. It is somewhat reminiscent in setting, costume, palette and mood to his Griselda At the Well of 1860, his painting from a year earlier. The principal young woman is shown leaning against a fence with a far away look, perhaps thinking about her absent lover, while her friend places the letter in her left hand. Both girls are dressed in traditional folk attire. The exact origin of these costumes is difficult to pinpoint, but they are possibly Italian from the Venetian region. The blouses and midriff laced waistbands are right for this area but some elements, such as the jacket the left hand figure is wearing, might almost be Spanish. Apparently Storey had a very well stocked studio wardrobe at his disposal. A village is seen in the right midground while in the background can be seen a range of blue hills and a bright blue sky. The foreground is not treated in the meticulous detail seen in Storey's earlier works when he was still under the spell of Pre-Raphaelitism.
An engraving of a very different painting by Storey called The Love-Letter was published in The Windsor Magazine in 1905 (p. 623) and in The Illustrated London News, Vol. 134, in June as a supplement to the summer number of 1909. This version of the theme had been painted in 1901.
Bibliography
Margaux, Adrian. "The Art of Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R. A."
Storey, G. A.: Sketches from Memory. London: Chatto and Windus, 1899.
Created 23 September 2023