George Frederic Watts, Ophelia

George Frederic Watts

Hope 1886

Ellen Terry Asleep

The artist's young wife, the actress Ellen Terry, who was 30 years his junior – having been introduced by mutual friend Tom Taylor, they married on 20 February 1864 just seven days short of her 17th birthday. When she eloped with another man after less than a year of marriage, Watts was obliged to divorce her.

CZ

Happy Warrior

Ellen Terry at the piano

inscribed 'Ellen Terry' (lower right) 
pencil and stump 
12 x 8¾ in. (31 x 22 cm.) 

The present drawing is of Watts' first wife, the actress Ellen Terry, whom he married in 1864. The most famous image of Ellen Terry is perhaps the painting that Watts made of her immediately after their marriage, in which she wears her wedding dress, becoming almost entwined in the dense camellia bush that fills the rest of the picture. 

In order to create the soft shadows produced by the folds of his wife's dress in the present drawing, Watts used the medium stump, a coil of leather, felt or paper with blunt points at both ends used to rub on chalk, pencil, pastel or charcoal. 

Helen Rose Huth

oil on canvas 
26 x 21 in. (66 x 53.3 cm.) 

Barbara Bryant, GF Watts Portraits: Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2004, p. 101, fig. 34. 

Until recently, this portrait was traditionally identifed as 'Lady Willoughby de Broke', presumably owing the likely date at which it was painted, the wife of the 17th Baron. It was hence purchased by the Peter Moores Foundation for display at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, the former seat of the Willoughby de Brokes, from where it is now being sold. 

Its re-identification was confirmed when it appeared as a comparative illustration in the catalogue entry for a full length portrait of Helen Rose Huth, included in G F Watts: Portraits, at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 2004, no. 30. The sitter sat to Watts four times: only Lady Holland, the Pattle sisters, Ellen Terry and Violet Lindsay sat to him more often.

The sitter (née Ogilvy) married Louis Huth, a company director for an insurance firm, in 1855. Almost a generation younger than his siblings, each member of the family were avid collectors: Charles, a director of the Bank of England, purchased works by Linnell and Constable, while Henry collected rare books. Like his friend Rossetti, Louis formed a collection of blue and white porcelain, which he displayed against a foremidable collection of fine and decorative art. His tastes exemplified those of the Aesthetic Movement. He owned Whistler's Symphony in White, no. 3 (Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham) while his wife was also painted by the artist in a picture entitled Arrangement in Black, no. 2: Portrait of Mrs Louis Huth. A study in black on black it was no doubt conceived as a counterpoint to Watt's elegaic full length of Mrs Huth, dressed in white, and gesturing to a pug, which was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in 2004 and is now in Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane. 

Portrait of Eveleen Tennant, 1869

G.F. Watts: Portraits

George Frederic Watts

Constantine Alexander Ionides

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/study-guide-constantine-ionides-bequest/

Little Red Riding Hood

This is Watts's first treatment of the theme, an illustration to Perrault's fairy tale. It was painted in 1864 and bought by Sir William Bowman, whose portrait Watts painted in the following year. A full-length version of the subject, painted in 1890, is in Birmingham City Art Gallery.

George Frederic Watts - Edith Villiers, later Countess of Lytton

George Frederic Watts - Ruth and Boaz c.1835 - 7

Sisters - G F Watts

George Frederic Watts - Study for 'The Court of Death' c.1868–1870

Hubert von Herkomer - George Frederic Watts

George Frederic Watts - The Honourable Mary Baring, Later The Marchioness Of Northampton

Charles Couzens - G. F. Watts 1849

George Frederic Watts - Lady Lilford 1860