JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE (1849-1917) Biography
PRE-RAPHAELITE (founded 1848) Biography

Provenance

The Artist's studio sale, Christie's 23 1926, lot 48
Sampson, bought at the above sale; his sale,
Christie's 4 April 1930, lot 177
Mr. Jay, bought from the above

Literature

Alfred Lys Baldry, The Late J.W.Waterhouse R.A, The Studio1917, volume LXXI, plate opposite page10, illustrating a related study for this work.
Anthony Hobson, The Art and Life of J. W Waterhouse, Studio Vista and Christie's 1980, page 196, catalogue number 310
Anthony Hobson, John William Waterhouse, Phaidon, Oxford 1989, pages 89 and 122 reproduced in a full page colour plate, plate 68, page 95

Exhibition History

London, Royal Academy, 1922, Winter Exhibition, Works by Recently Deceased Members of the Royal Academy, number 225, lent by the artist's widow.

Description / Expertise

The image of Vanity, a beautiful woman admiring herself in a mirror, is found in European Art from the time of the middle ages. It is an ambiguous image because the spectator is invited both to admire and to disapprove. In this haunting picture, John William Waterhouse surely intends admiration to be paramount. The picture reinterprets such paintings as Titians 'The Toilet' (Louvre) and Rossetti's 'Lady Lilith' (Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington) with a new sense of immediacy. On looking at it, the first impression is not of its place in an artistic tradition, but the spontaneity and naturalness of the woman's gesture.
Waterhouse is one of the few artists to combine influences from the two main currents in late nineteenth century British art: one derived from Pre-Raphaelitism, the other from French painting. He was a painter of poetical subjects drawn from Keats, Tennyson,Shakespeare and classical mythology. Although his subject matter and romantic approach owe much to PreRaphaelitism, his bold painterly technique derives from French artists such as Bastien Lepage. Indeed all his friendships were made among the French-influenced artists of the Newlyn School, rather than the circles around Burne-Jones.
His parents were both minor artists. Waterhouse was born in Rome, although his family returned to London while he was still a child. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1870 and began to exhibit at the Society of British Artists in 1872, and the Royal Academy in 1874, making his debut as a painter of eastern and classical genre scenes and large reconstructions of incidents from ancient history. The culmination of this phase of his art was 'Mariamne, Wife of King Herod the Great, Going Forth to be Executed' (exhibited Royal Academy 1887; Forbes Collection, London & New York). The following year he initiated his poetic phase with 'The Lady of Shalott', which was bought by Sir Henry Tate, and is today one of the most popular paintings in the Tate Gallery. Despite his preferred subject matter after this date, Waterhouse showed primarily at the Royal Academy, although he also exhibited a few works at the more 'aesthetic' venues of the Grosvenor and New Galleries. He was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1885 and Royal Academician in 1895. Anthony Hobson's The Art and Life of J. W. Waterhouse RA, 1849-1917 appeared in 1980 (Christie's and Studio Vista, London). The 1989 edition is now available.