Lilies, Poppies and Carnations (Study)

Date: c. 1916

This is a study for the artist’s last picture ‘The Enchanted Garden’ now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. Waterhouse frequently includes flowers in the foregrounds of his mythological pictures, and went to considerable lengths to make his figures harmonize with their landscape settings. His landscapes are always well observed, and he must have made many oil sketches of landscapes and flowers, although not many survive. This was included in a studio sale after Waterhouse’s death, at Christie’s in 1926.

Source: no.36, ‘The Victorian Age’, Autumn Exhibition 1990, Christopher Wood Gallery, London.