Harold Harvey 1874-1941

Frost & Reed, Bristol;
Sotheby's, 21 May 1986, lot 85;
David Messum, London, 1990

Royal Academy, 1914, no. 843;
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Autumn Exhibition, 1914, no. 120;
London, David Messum, 1990, no 23

Kenneth McConkey, Peter Risdon and Pauline Sheppard, Harold Harvey - Painter of Cornwall, 2001, pp. 23, 74,144, cat. no. 192

Winding Wool was painted at Maen Cottage, the pretty little house bought by Harvey and his wife Gertrude on Elm Close Terrace on Chywoone Hill in Newlyn. The stone semi-detached house was modest in size and decoration but had magnificent views over Mount's Bay and Newlyn Harbour. War was looming on the horizon and around the time that the present picture was painted artists were being encouraged not to paint landscapes or views of the coast. The British government feared that landscape paintings might fall into enemy hands and be used against the country and outdoor sketching was forbidden. Harvey therefore began a series of beautifully coloured indoors in which children and women are involved in everyday activities; making tea, taking lunch or sewing. The present picture was almost certainly painted in the dining-room at Maen Cottage and the distinctive chair-rail which appears in other works can clearly be seen running around the room. 

It has been suggested that the girl with long plaited hair was modelled upon Mornie, the pretty elder daughter of the artist Samuel John Lamorna Birch. Mornie posed for several artists, including Augustus John, Alfred Munnings and Laura Knight whose portrait Lamorna Birch and his Daughters (University of Nottingham) was painted in 1913. She was thirteen when the picture was painted and bears a strong similarity to the girl in Knight's Birch family portrait painted only a year later and the contemporary picture Lamorna Birch's Daughter also by Knight. It is likely that Mornie also posed for Harvey's picture Betty Shut the Door of 1917 (sold in these rooms, 13 December 2005, lot 72).