Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, KCVO, RA
(British, 1843-1927)

"The Italian Flower Seller", 1888

oil on canvas
signed, dated and localized "Venezia" at lower left.
Framed.
74" x 47", framed 92-1/2" x 62"

Provenance: Private collection, London, England; Private collection.

Literature: David Croal Thomson, The Life and Work of Luke Fildes, (London: J.S. Virtue & Co., Ltd., 1895), lithograph of painting offered here illustrated p. 15.; "Progress in English Art: A Day with an Academician", New York Times, 16 March 1880; "Obituary", The Times, 28 February 1927; Christopher Wood, Victorian Painters, (Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1998)

Notes: Fildes was one of the most acclaimed social realist artists of 19th-century Britain. His paternal grandmother, Mary Fildes, who eventually adopted him and financially supported his artistic training and schooling, was a well-respected social reformer associated with the Chartist Movement. Fildes shared many of his grandmother's views and he saw art as an opportunity to raise the general public's awareness of the plight of their fellow citizens. He attended Warrington School of Art and the South Kensington Art School, before gaining entrance to the Royal Academy School.

One of his first jobs was as a permanent staff illustrator for The Graphic, a weekly publication known for its social reform stance. He also produced illustrations for other journals of the time, including Cornhill Magazine and the Gentleman's Magazine. He soon gave up illustrative work to concentrate on painting, creating a series of works exploring the various difficulties faced by the British working class.

In 1887, a trip to Italy exposed him to the American expatriate artists, including James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. The resulting contemporary Venetian portraits, of which the painting offered here is an exemplary model, were extremely popular and many, including this one, were made into widely produced lithographs. Here, the relatively somber figure, rendered in delicately applied brushstrokes of thin layers of subdued hues, is juxtaposed with the riotous color that forms the bundles of fresh flowers created in thick impasto which encircle her. In a technique cleverly cribbed from his years as an illustrator in stark black and white, Fildes has the figure emerging from a nebulous darkness which acts as a foil for the creams and blushes of her skin. While these paintings were true to the tenets of social realism - he was depicting the actual Venetian working class in situ - they also had an aesthetically pleasing quality that was not evident in his earlier work. As a result, Fildes found himself a desired portrait painter, and by his death in 1927, he was considered one of the best society portraitists.

Fildes was named an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1879, made a full Academician in 1887, Knighted in 1906, and appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1918.

Overall good estate condition. Evidence of past restoration: old repair upper left corner corresponding to patched area en verso; old repair at center of canvas. Painting has not been relined. Puncture to canvas upper mid-right with accompanying losses to paint; small hole upper right, area of paint loss at mid-right. Very small scattered other areas. Some abrading along edges where canvas meets frame. Overall craquelure with some areas of separation and soiling, including lower left, mid-right and lower left; scattered other areas. Layer of surface soiling. Yellowing and unevenness to varnish layer, along with several areas of pooling.

92.5 x 62 in