Beschreibung:

THE BEGGAR GIRL Sir William Orpen RA RI RHA (1878-1931)
Signature: signed upper left Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 76 by 56cm., 30 by 22in. Provenance: Beaux Arts Gallery, London (by 1924) Thomas Howarth, Westmoreland, England (by 1932) (purchased from above); Anon, London, Christie’s Sale, 04 November 1983, Lot No. 64 (Illus. p.34); Vincent Ferguson, Lisnacran, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin; Christie’s & Edmiston’s Ltd, Ireland, Lisnacran, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin (Hamilton & Hamilton) Sale, 20 May 1987, Lot No. 277; Private Collection; Christie’s, London, 8 May 2008, Lot No. 86 Exhibited: `Sir William Orpen R.A', Beaux Arts Gallery, London, July 1924, catalogue no. 5 Literature: Konody, P.G., and Dark, Sidney, William Orpen Artist and Man, Seeley Service, London, 1932, p. 277, (Appendix - List of Works - Uncertain Date) Cara Copland Ref : H03:13 In September 1904, Orpen accompanied his friend, the art dealer and connoisseur, Hugh Lane, to Europe on a buying expedition to acquire works for Lane’s project - a Modern Art Gallery for Dublin. The ... tour took them first to Paris and then to Madrid. As Lane’s forte was the Old Masters, Orpen went along ostensibly as a guide and adviser in the field of modern European art. However, for Orpen, who had for years been studying images of the Old Master paintings whilst learning his trade at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and then the Slade School of Fine Art in London, it was an opportunity to come face to face with works that until then he only knew from reproductions. He embraced them like old friends, and their sight did not disappoint. In letters to his wife from Madrid, he enthuses ‘We have seen the Prado! We have seen San Fernando! And I have no great wish to see anything more here except these two again and again till I leave …’ and: ‘I have spent nearly the whole morning looking at Goya’s. they are the most amazing things I have ever seen all wonderfull [sic]in paint and composition…’; and again : ‘I am learning so much from Velasquez and Goya that I am nearly off my head with excitement.’(See note 1 below) Orpen returned to London with renewed vigour and an almost insatiable desire to translate the experience into paint. What followed throughout 1905 and into 1906 was an explosion of energy and a willingness to explore and assimilate the techniques of the Old Masters, mainly, but not exclusively, inspired by the Spanish artists such as Goya, Velasquez, Pereda, Ribera and others, with a zest not matched since his Slade days when he drew on the likes of Watteau, Hogarth, Goya, Rembrandt and Chardin, for his master work of that period, the Play Scene from Hamlet, 1899 (Private Collection). For the new canvases of 1905 his choice of male and female models was inspired. Foremost amongst these were Mr Green and Lottie Stafford of Paradise Walk, Mr Green featuring in The Saint of Poverty, 1905 (Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries) and the Flycatcher, 1905 (Private Collection) with their echoes of Ribera, while Lottie Stafford was portrayed as a washerwoman after Chardin in such works as At the Tub, 1905 (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and The Wash House, 1905 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) and the half-length Resting, 1905 (Ulster Museum, Belfast). Working class characters were devoid of idealism; their ‘lived-in’ hands and faces permitted a display of virtuosity, conveyed, for the most part, in an earth-based palette. It is into such groupings that the present work, The Beggar Girl, falls. Orpen’s revitalised Old Master enthusiasm caused him to revisit his early affection for the Dutch Masters. He had looked at the Dutch before, with New English Art Club submissions such as The Mirror, 1900 (Tate) in which P.G. Konody found echoes of Metsu and Terborch (See note 2 below), but now he turned to Frans Hals Whether it was Hals that inspired the choice of model or the model that called the Dutch master vividly to mind, is not certain, and although her identity is not known, her striking features, especially her teeth, may hav