James-Jaques-Joseph Tissot

London, The Leicester Galleries (by 1937)
Lady Glenconner (1937)
The Hon. P.M. Tennant (by descent from the above, his mother) 
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 24, 1988, lot 114, as Quiet (The Artist's Garden)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 1881, no. 774
Birmingham, Birmingham Royal Society of Artists, Spring Exhibition, 1882, no. 150
London, The Leicester Galleries, Second James Tissot Exhibition, January 1937, no. 7, as The Artist's Garden

"Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, The Spring Exhibition," Birmingham Daily Post, March 27, 1882, p. 4
"Birmingham Royal Society of Artists, Spring Exhibition, The Private View," Birmingham Daily Post, April 1, 1882, n.p. 
James Laver, "Vulgar Society": The Romantic Career of James Tissot 1836-1902, London, 1936, p. 46, illus. Pl. XXVI, as The Artist’s Garden
Marita Ross, "The Truth about Tissot,"  Everybody’s, June 15, 1946, illustrated p. 7
David S. Brooke, James Jacques Joseph Tissot 1836-1902, A Retrospective Exhibition, (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1968, within entry for no. 34, oil version
Willard E. Misfeldt, James Jacques Joseph Tissot: A Bio-Critical Study, PhD dissertation, Washington University, 1971, p. 196
Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, Oxford, 1984, p. 153, n. 86
Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz, ed., James Tissot, Oxford, 1984 (exhibition catalogue), Barbican Art Gallery, London, and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 1984-1985, p. 127, within entry for no. 134, oil version
Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz, James Tissot 1836-1902, Paris, 1985, exhibition catalogue., Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, April 5-June 30, 1985, p. 216, within entry for no. 122, oil version

Please contact the 19th Century European Paintings Department at (212) 606-7140 for the condition report for this lot.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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When Quiet was exhibited in 1882, a reviewer for the Birmingham Daily Post said it showed "a comely and fashionably-attired blonde damsel in blue silk, with diaphanous sleeves, resting, book in lap, on a tree-embowered garden seat, with her little sister and dog sprawling beside her."  The models were in fact the great love of James Tissot’s life, Mrs Kathleen Newton, and her favorite niece, Lilian Hervey. Kathleen had come to live with Tissot at his London house in Grove End Road, St John’s Wood, some time in 1877 (fig. 1). Her two young children continued to live, and share a nanny, with their cousins at the home of Kathleen’s older sister, Mrs Mary Pauline Hervey, a few minutes' walk away in Hill Road, visiting Kathleen and Tissot for teatime picnics, piano songs, storytelling and play. Tissot depicted the children in many of his pictures. Lilian was the younger of Mary Pauline’s two daughters, a year older than Kathleen’s son, Cecil George, and very fond of her aunt. She appears with Kathleen in a number of Tissot’s compositions, including Orphan and The Elder Sister, both explored in oils and etching. The black-and-white dog and the large fur rug appear frequently in pictures set both indoors and out, while the seated figure of Kathleen in blue from Quiet is repeated on her own in La Lecture dans le parc (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, fig. 2). Lilian Hervey recalled, when interviewed by the journalist Marita Ross in 1946, that blue was Kathleen’s favorite color for clothes, and "M. Tissot took great interest in supervising their details, for he knew that sooner or later he would paint those gowns." Jewelry and flowers were also important details carefully observed by Tissot.

Kathleen had been born in 1854 to Flora and Charles Frederick Ashburnham Kelly in Agra, India, where her father worked as an accountant for the British East India Company. She was sent to school in England with Mary Pauline, returning to India in 1870 for an arranged marriage to Dr. Isaac Newton, a distinguished army surgeon and widower twice Kathleen’s age. The marriage took place in January 1871 but Kathleen admitted to having fallen in love with a naval captain during the voyage east and left her new husband, who instituted divorce proceedings. Sent back to England, Kathleen gave birth to a daughter, Muriel Violet Mary Newton, in December 1871, and later a son, Cecil George, in March 1876 at her sister’s Hill Road house. Nothing is known about Kathleen’s whereabouts or life between the two births. She came into Tissot’s life during the latter part of 1876: the first certain depiction of her by Tissot is the etched Portrait of M. N., dated that year. Kathleen came to live with Tissot in 1877, the year of his etching Mavourneen, which means "my darling" or "my dear one" in Irish, popularized in the song Kathleen Mavourneen. Tissot’s French friends described her as la ravissante Irlandaise. Both of them were Roman Catholics, so were unable to marry, as the Church does not recognize divorce. They lived, however, as man and wife, with "their own little literary and artistic circles, in which the absence of a conventional wedding ring made no difference," according to Lilian Hervey.

 Quiet is one of several watercolor versions of oils painted by Tissot to meet the insatiable demand for his works from exhibition organizers and art collectors. Watercolors were less expensive than oils and along with etchings provided a range of works at different prices to suit all enthusiasts for Tissot’s pictures.

We would like to thank Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz for writing this note.

Please note that in the print catalogue for this sale, this lot appears as number 215T.