Introduction
The portrait is purely from the neck-up, with this young woman having fairly red hair which was a common choice by the artist. Her hair is neatly styled, but fairly simple and unglamorous. This was his preference, as he liked to portray these young women in fairly natural ways, boasting innocence and purity over any more extravagant qualities.
The model is typically focused on something in the distance, as with most of Waterhouse's drawings, and he liked to create a sense of atmosphere by not allowing the viewer to see directly into the eyes of his subjects. Although he only focuses on facial features here, it is still a fairly well refined drawing with shading used to provide shadows underneath her chin as well as to the side of her nose.
Description
This simple portrait features a red-haired model staring off into the distance, on our left hand side. Her hun is tidied away into a bun and the sketch is cropped at around the neck area. Waterhouse chose not to include any other detail within this piece, and was clearly intending only to practice her facial features.
The model has pursed lips, with a thin, angular nose and bright, open eyes. She is slim, young and of a pale complexion, as with all of his portraits, both in painted and drawn. The artist signed the work in the bottom right corner, indicating its completeness. He may have given it away to a friend or donor after using it for the later painting.
The oil sketch that followed, shown at the bottom of this page, brings some delightful colour into the piece, which is missing here because of the single tone of the chalk used. He would have imagined the next stage whilst working on this drawing, and is likely to have worked alone on the oil version.
Technique
In many cases Waterhouse would put some light shading on the background to provide contrast and blend but in this case leaves it untouched. The lines of the neck continue on before ending close to the edge of the paper.
The artist would produce several thousands of drawings within his career, most of which would be female portraits such as this. Sadly, a huge proportion of them would be lost or damaged over time and today there are only a few hundred left in circulation that have been positively identified as having been from the hand of Waterhouse.
Waterhouse at Auction
They do sometimes appear at auction and can fetch anything from several thousand pounds to a good amount more, with their value depending on the quality and intensity of the drawing as well as any potential connection to one of his famous paintings.
For example, large sums were received for studies in preparation for the likes of Boreas, Circe Invidiosa and Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, whilst The Rose Bower as seen here was not quite such a famous painting. Fashions influence prices as well, and so with Pre-Raphaelite art going through something of a Renaissance at the moment, many of these items are being put up for sale in the expectation of maximising their worth.
The Rise of British Art
British art has long since followed in the shadows of Italian and French art across the centuries but in recent years there has been a number of home grown talents who have achieved international acclaim in their own right. Few can forget the influence of Turner on Monet, for example, and there certainly seem particular genres which the UK does very well.
A similar example can be seen with the US, too, which now leads the world with some of the modern art forms which came about in the second half of the 20th century with New York surpassing Paris as the centre of the art world in the eyes of many. In time, no doubt, things will shift again as has been the case for so many centuries and the influx of modern technology has certainly made the art world a smaller place in many regards.
Large Image of The Rose Bower
See below for a large image of the completed painting to compare the study with this final piece. That was an oil study, and just develops on what he produced within this drawing. Waterhouse would regularly start with charcoal, pencil or chalk, before moving onto oils in various levels of completeness.
