Ethel Bartlett (1896-1978) and her husband Rae Robertson (1893-1956) were a famous piano duo. They taught at the Matthay School of Music and in the 1920s to 1950s toured widely in Europe and America. The couple became good friends with Harold and Laura Knight in the 1920s, when they lived in London.
The Knights painted Ethel many times. Laura exhibited a portrait of her at the Royal Academy in 1926, while Harold exhibited seven portraits of her between 1923 and 1952. This painting, his Royal Academy Diploma work, is an intimate study showing Ethel with her head turned to the side and tilted upwards, a pose intended to emphasise her artistic sensibility. In her autobiography Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) Laura Knight said of Ethel:
'the study of the simple lines of her beauty took me by storm. I believe that most of the work I did for a time - even when the subject was an entirely different one- had something of Ethel in it. A man once told me that Ethel looked too much like the sort of girl you just couldn't help falling in love with.... I can imagine this to be true.'
Harold Knight, RA (1874-1961) was very interested in seventeenth century Dutch genre painting, particularly the work of Jan Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch. In this portrait the influence of Vermeer is apparent through its still atmosphere as well as the diagonal lighting of Ethel's features and satin dress. |
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