George Frederic Watts, O.M., R.A.

Bequeathed by the artist to his adopted daughter Mrs Lilian Chapman;
Sotheby's, London, 21 June 1989, lot 119;
Private collection

London, Grosvenor Gallery, Collection of the Works of G. F. Watts, R.A., Winter Exhibition, 1881-2, no.89 (as A Bacchanal);
Venice, III Esposizione Internationale d'Arte, 1889, no.K-40 (as Bacchante);
Manchester, Watts Memorial Exhibition, 1905;
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, Works of the Late G.F. Watts, R.A., O.M., 1905, no.138;
London, Royal Academy, Works by the Late George Frederick Watts, Winter Exhibition, 1905, no.233.

G.F. Watts, 1904, illustrated pl.23 (as A Bacchanal);
Rowland Alston, The Mind and Work of G.F. Watts, O.M., R.A., 1929, p.37, no.112, illustrated pl.XXV.

STRUCTURE The canvas has been relined. There are traces of dirt and a discoloured varnish to the paint surface. There are a few scattered spots of craquelure, notably to the woman's chest. There is a also a small abrasion above the woman's head. Otherwise in fair condition. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT UV reveals a few flecks of retouching to the woman's eyes and the eyes nose mouth and arm of the figure lower left, as well as to the hand in the upper right corner. FRAME Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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The present work dates from the late 1870s, though it was possibly begun earlier. Watts used a similar type of composition showing a bust length, partly draped female for The Wife of Pygmalion, exhibited in 1868. In his sculpture of Clytie, worked on mainly in the 1860s, the figure also turns her head, thus focusing attention on the neck and torso. A Bacchante shows Watts' continuing reference to classicism, even in his late carer. Here he depicts a semi-nude, draped female, and draws upon classical subject matter in the use of a Bacchante whose revels in honour of the god Dionysus are over.

The artist retained this work for his own collection, displaying it in the Little Holland House Gallery. He selected it as his only submission to an international exhibition in Venice in 1899, when interest in Symbolism was at its highest.