Lot Essay
The work of John J. Lee has been aptly described as 'a striking testimony to the triumph of Pre-Raphaelitism in the provinces' (Jeremy Maas, Victorian Painters, 1969, p.237). He was one of a group of Liverpool painters (W.L. Windus and William Davis being others) who felt the influence of the paintings by Millais, Holman Hunt and Madox Brown which were exhibited in the 1850s at the Liverpool Academy, and found a much warmer reception there than in London. Lee's career is poorly documented. A member of a Liverpool merchant family, he is recorded as living at Rock Ferry, Cheshire, with a Liverpool studio (?) in Church Street (1859) and Lord Street (1861-2). By 1866, however, he had moved to Haverstock Hill, London, where he is said to have died comparatively young. He exhibited at the Liverpool Academy (1859-67), the Royal Academy (1863-67), and the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Strret (1860-61). Thirteen of his pictures are recorded in exhibition cattalogues but only five are known today: the present one, one in the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, and three in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; these include what is probably his most familiar work, Sweethearts and Wives (1860; repr. Maas, loc. cit.).
Like all Lee's known pictures, The Bookstall represents early Pre-Raphaelitism at its most intense and quirky, full of visual eccentricities, strange juxtapositions and psychological nuances. Technically too it is characteristic, the forms being realised in great detail and clarity by stippling bright transparent colours over a pure white ground. The Art Journal described it as an 'ambitious picture ... which, though exhibiting the "leathery" tendency which is a fault of one branch of the Pre-Raphaelites, demonstrates capabilities for better things.' It has been suggested that the setting is Church Street, Liverpool, where Lee seems to have had a studio a few years before the picture was painted.
John Miller, the picture's first owner, was one of the most important early patrons of the Pre-Raphaelites. A Liverpool merchant of Scottish descent, already in his sixties by this time, he lived at 9 Everton Brow and had a rented house on the Isle of Bute. He was known for his generosity, and is said to have 'kept' the unfortunate William Davis 'for years'. His daughter Gussy married P.P. Marshall, one of the partners of the Morris firm and a close friend of Madox Brown (see lot ).
Like all Lee's known pictures, The Bookstall represents early Pre-Raphaelitism at its most intense and quirky, full of visual eccentricities, strange juxtapositions and psychological nuances. Technically too it is characteristic, the forms being realised in great detail and clarity by stippling bright transparent colours over a pure white ground. The Art Journal described it as an 'ambitious picture ... which, though exhibiting the "leathery" tendency which is a fault of one branch of the Pre-Raphaelites, demonstrates capabilities for better things.' It has been suggested that the setting is Church Street, Liverpool, where Lee seems to have had a studio a few years before the picture was painted.
John Miller, the picture's first owner, was one of the most important early patrons of the Pre-Raphaelites. A Liverpool merchant of Scottish descent, already in his sixties by this time, he lived at 9 Everton Brow and had a rented house on the Isle of Bute. He was known for his generosity, and is said to have 'kept' the unfortunate William Davis 'for years'. His daughter Gussy married P.P. Marshall, one of the partners of the Morris firm and a close friend of Madox Brown (see lot ).