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Lot Essay
The present work is a study for The Last Evening (Guildhall Art Gallery, London). In the finished oil a couple sit on board ship, she in a bentwood rocking chair looking out into the distance, he behind her, his hand grasping the back of her chair, gazing intently at her. Meanwhile two older men seated on the bench behind, obviously discussing the couple, look on; while a young girl eavesdrops on both conversations.
Seated in the rocking chair, she is listless rather than distressed and we feel that the situation of impending separation has revealed an inequality in feeling between the couple. The theme of parting and of lonely, unsatified women was one to which Tissot often returned, for example in his Goodbye on the Mersey (1881; The Forbes Magazine Collection, New York) and Les Deux Amis (1882; Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art).
Arguably one of Tissot's best-known London pictures, The Last Evening was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873, a particularly successful and fruitful year for the artist, along with another Thames riverside scene, The Captain's Daughter. Emboldened by his successes of the previous year, Tissot chose to depict the figures in both paintings in contemporary dress. The paintings proved to be a great success at the Academy, and were well received by critics and public alike. The Art Journal, 1873, p. 167 notes that 'Both of these pictures are remarkably well painted.'
Tissot moved to London from Paris in 1871, and exhibited The Farewell, an historical piece, at the Royal Academy, which was well received. His next contributions in 1872 were firmly set in London; An Interesting Story, Bad News (The Parting), The Tedious Story and Tea Time are variations on similar themes, which show pretty girls and a red coated officer, in an interior, the River Thames glimpsed through the window beyond. The Thames was to become a new source of inspiration for Tissot.
Tissot may have been influenced in his choice of setting by his renewed acquaintance with his old friend, Whistler, who was now living in London. Whistler had been painting Thames river scenes for several years. His Wapping on Thames was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle, 1867 and he produced his Thames Set of etchings in 1872. In addition Tissot recognised the potential of the Thames as an endless and fascinating subject matter; the Pool of London was at the time one of the busiest and greatest ports in the world. The commercial area from Tower Bridge to Greenwich was the most interesting to Tissot and he continued painting shipboard pictures and scenes by the Thames until he left London in 1882.
The models for The Last Evening, were Captain John Freebody, a master of a number of ships, which spent time in the London docks, and his wife, Margaret Kennedy. They appeared in two other paintings of 1873, The Captain and the Mate (private collection) and Boarding the Yacht (private collection). Both pictures were also set against the backdrop of the River Thames.
The motif of black and white patterned drapery reappears frequently in Tissot's paintings of the 1870s, for example in Boarding the Yacht (1873), Still on top (1874; Auckland City Art Gallery) and Return from the Boating Trip (1873; private collection) in which the same tartan shawl as in the present work is also depicted. This was a favourite studio prop of Tissot's and allowed him to demonstrate his technical virtuosity.
Tissot made a number of bodycolour studies in the early 1870s, including two for Two Early (fig. 1) and one for The Captain's Daughter (1873; Southampton Museum and Art Gallery), which like the present watercolour have an attractive freshness and immediacy. There is another preliminary watercolour for The Last Evening in the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, see C. Wood, Tissot, London, 1986, pl. 63, fig. 59.
The Last Evening has been described as a 'Tour-de-force, combining Tissot's french brilliance and the more pedestrian traditions of Victorian narrative painting in a unique mixture' and the figure of the seated woman as 'one of Tissot's most remarkable figures'. (see C. Wood op. cit., p. 63)
Seated in the rocking chair, she is listless rather than distressed and we feel that the situation of impending separation has revealed an inequality in feeling between the couple. The theme of parting and of lonely, unsatified women was one to which Tissot often returned, for example in his Goodbye on the Mersey (1881; The Forbes Magazine Collection, New York) and Les Deux Amis (1882; Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art).
Arguably one of Tissot's best-known London pictures, The Last Evening was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873, a particularly successful and fruitful year for the artist, along with another Thames riverside scene, The Captain's Daughter. Emboldened by his successes of the previous year, Tissot chose to depict the figures in both paintings in contemporary dress. The paintings proved to be a great success at the Academy, and were well received by critics and public alike. The Art Journal, 1873, p. 167 notes that 'Both of these pictures are remarkably well painted.'
Tissot moved to London from Paris in 1871, and exhibited The Farewell, an historical piece, at the Royal Academy, which was well received. His next contributions in 1872 were firmly set in London; An Interesting Story, Bad News (The Parting), The Tedious Story and Tea Time are variations on similar themes, which show pretty girls and a red coated officer, in an interior, the River Thames glimpsed through the window beyond. The Thames was to become a new source of inspiration for Tissot.
Tissot may have been influenced in his choice of setting by his renewed acquaintance with his old friend, Whistler, who was now living in London. Whistler had been painting Thames river scenes for several years. His Wapping on Thames was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle, 1867 and he produced his Thames Set of etchings in 1872. In addition Tissot recognised the potential of the Thames as an endless and fascinating subject matter; the Pool of London was at the time one of the busiest and greatest ports in the world. The commercial area from Tower Bridge to Greenwich was the most interesting to Tissot and he continued painting shipboard pictures and scenes by the Thames until he left London in 1882.
The models for The Last Evening, were Captain John Freebody, a master of a number of ships, which spent time in the London docks, and his wife, Margaret Kennedy. They appeared in two other paintings of 1873, The Captain and the Mate (private collection) and Boarding the Yacht (private collection). Both pictures were also set against the backdrop of the River Thames.
The motif of black and white patterned drapery reappears frequently in Tissot's paintings of the 1870s, for example in Boarding the Yacht (1873), Still on top (1874; Auckland City Art Gallery) and Return from the Boating Trip (1873; private collection) in which the same tartan shawl as in the present work is also depicted. This was a favourite studio prop of Tissot's and allowed him to demonstrate his technical virtuosity.
Tissot made a number of bodycolour studies in the early 1870s, including two for Two Early (fig. 1) and one for The Captain's Daughter (1873; Southampton Museum and Art Gallery), which like the present watercolour have an attractive freshness and immediacy. There is another preliminary watercolour for The Last Evening in the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, see C. Wood, Tissot, London, 1986, pl. 63, fig. 59.
The Last Evening has been described as a 'Tour-de-force, combining Tissot's french brilliance and the more pedestrian traditions of Victorian narrative painting in a unique mixture' and the figure of the seated woman as 'one of Tissot's most remarkable figures'. (see C. Wood op. cit., p. 63)