Lilian

Painting height: 152.4 cm
Painting width: 101.6 cm
Frame height: 180 cm
Frame width: 129 cm

A tender portrait painted shortly before the artist’s death, demonstrating his lifelong passion for beauty. Lilian ‘Lily’ Macintosh (1879–1972) was one of a number of children who often played in the garden of Little Holland House. In 1890, after the death of her parents, George and Mary Watts formally adopted her. Painted when she was around 24 years of age, this portrait places Lilian within the grounds of Limnerslease. In addition to being an affectionate portrait of their ward, it represents a rare and intimate artistic collaboration between the Wattses.

In this large scale, almost life-sized portrait, Lilian stands facing the viewer. She gazes out at us, in an almost trance like state. There is a softness to her face, with no definite lines or edges to her features. This tender and delicate paint application is also evident in her golden hair which characteristically curled up at the ends, visible beneath her summer hat. The loosely tied pink ribbon of her hat falls in front of her white smock dress with full sleeves and into a basket of cut yellow, pink, and white roses in full bloom.

Around the time he painted Lilian, Watts also painting a number of landscapes and detailed studies of trees in portrait formats. Both Green Summer (COMWG.47, 1903) and A Parasite (COMWG.135, 1903) were painted from the window of his studio at Limnerslease and demonstrate how his attention was focussed on the natural environment which surrounded him. It is likely that the landscape setting which Lilian is positioned in is also that of Limnerslease. From Mary’s diary we know that she was involved with planting and maintaining the gardens, which included a variety of rose bushes [1]. Her Annals also help us date the picture as she described how in the autumn of 1903 ‘when I was in London for a day, [George] called to Lily to come to his studio, and began to work hard upon the picture’ [2].

On first seeing the portrait Mary expressed her delight but believed that the laurel wreath which Watts had depicted Lilian holding was too funereal. It is possible to read Mary’s additions as representative of the Watts’s love for their adopted daughter. Traditionally, roses represent love and beauty, whilst a mixture of white and red roses symbolises unity and warmth of heart [3]. When we look at Lilian’s left shoulder, a red rosebud is curiously placed. But is it falling, or has it been purposefully placed there? In contrast to the roses in full bloom which she is carrying, the rosebud is representative of one being ‘young and beautiful’ [4].

Flowers used for symbolic purposes had featured in portraits earlier in Watts’s career. In his grand return to the Royal Academy in 1858 he exhibited his portrait of Jane ‘Jeanie’ Elizabeth Hughes in which she waters a potted lily of the valley, symbolising the return of happiness. Then, in the year he married the actress Ellen Terry, he depicted her in Choosing, c.1864, in which she must decide between camellias signifying worldly vanities, and violets which are representative of higher virtues.

Painted in the months prior to his death, Lilian was the last portrait Watts exhibited at the Royal Academy in the summer exhibition of 1904. The exhibition, which was still taking place when Watts passed away on 1 July, saw Lilian hung in the Academy’s largest gallery; Gallery III. The reception from the critics was positive. One exclaimed that in Lilian there are passages such as no other living artist could paint’ [5], Another critic praised the escapism and hopefulness which the portrait represented as ‘Mr Watts carried us far outside and above every-day troubles and meannesses [sic] of life into an atmosphere of his own’ [6]. The painting has always remained in the Watts collection and stands as a ‘marvellous example of the power retained not only for feeling so intensely at that great age his lifelong passion for beauty, but also the power to fully record it’ [7].

Explore:

Green Summer [COMWG.47]

A Parasite [COMWG.135]

Footnotes:

[1] Desna Greenhow ed., The Diary of Mary Watts: 1887-1904 (London: Lund Humphries in association with Watts Gallery, 2016), p.155.

[2] Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: Annals of an Artist’s Life, vol. II (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1912), p.314.

[3] Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers: A Garland of Plant Lore and Symbolism from Popular Custom & Literature (London: Jupiter Books Ltd., 1977), pp. 166, 119.

[4] Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers: A Garland of Plant Lore and Symbolism from Popular Custom & Literature (London: Jupiter Books Ltd., 1977), p.120.

[5] ‘The Royal Academy’, London Daily News, 16 May 1904, p.4.

[6] ‘The Royal Academy’, Daily Telegraph & Courier, 5 May 1904, p.12.

[7] Mrs Russel Barrington, G F Watts: Reminiscences (London: George Allen, 1905), p.149.

Further Reading: 

‘The Royal Academy’, Daily Telegraph & Courier, 5 May 1904, p.12.

‘The Royal Academy’, London Daily News, 16 May 1904, p.4.

Wilfred Blunt, England’s Michelangelo (London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1975).

Victoria Franklin Gould, G.F. Watts: the last great Victorian (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004).

Desna Greenhow ed., The Diary of Mary Watts: 1887-1904 (London: Lund Humphries in association with Watts Gallery, 2016).

Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: Annals of an Artist’s Life, vol. II (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1912).

Text by Dr Stacey Clapperton