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Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941)
In the Conservatory
Watercolour, 25.5 x 17.3cm (10 x 6.8”)
Provenance: with Christopher Wood Gallery, London
‘The young lady knows how to look at her subjects with the eyes of a well-
trained artist; she can make good pictures out of simple and indeed trivial
material; and all her contributions are extremely interesting and even beau-
tiful, although there is not a shred of story, anecdote, incident or an atom
of pathos beyond that which always attends really artistic representations
of homely nature’ wrote the art critic of the Athenaeum in 1897. He went
on to say, ‘These pictures command attention by the massing and breadth of
their chiaroscuro and the solid way in which they have been handled’.
Under the early influence of the landscapist Paul Jacob Naftel; the animal
painter William Frank Calderon; and the Newlyn artists, Norman Garstin
and Stanhope Forbes, Mildred Anne Butler developed her signature style of
broad washes, strong colours and a sympathetic understanding of light and
shade. This selection of works represents her penchant for pastoral views
featuring cattle and genre views of continental towns. Having first ventured
to Europe in 1885, from 1905 she regularly took the waters at Aix le Bains.
Though strongly associated with scenes of her house and gardens at Kil-
murry in County Kilkenny, Butler was a widely travelled lady and a keen
businesswoman. When, in 1896, her work
The Morning Bath
was bought
for the Chantrey Bequest (Tate Gallery) for the princely sum of £50 it was
the first work by a woman artist to be chosen by them. The following year
Lady Cadogan, the Vicereine in Dublin, gave one of her watercolours to the
Princess of Wales. Queen Mary owned several of Butler’s works, including
a miniature painting of crows designed to hang in Queen Mary’s dollshouse
at Windsor Castle.
€1,000 - 1,500