Provenance
Agnew and Sons, London
Private collection, California
Catalogue note
As a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, Laslett John Pott showed 43 works between 1860 and 1897. He was heralded by the critics for his technical virtuosity and his ability to convey emotion in his figure pictures. One of his favorite themes was to depict a beautiful woman set in a landscape, and Flowers from the Garden is an especially fine example of this genre. The artist has excelled at showing the various textures of the woman’s dress from the silk brocade of her two-piece ensemble to the ruffled white silk and cotton batiste of the trim. This palette is echoed in the delicate shades of the flowers, which overflow in her basket. The painting has an air of mystery; it is not a portrait but the beginning of an unfolding story, which beckons the viewer to imagine the next chapter. It is a Victorian painting in the truest sense.