James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot

Mrs. Viva King of Thurloe Square, London by 1968;
Christie's, 19 May 1978, lot 226;
Mr. Charles de Pauw, by whose executors sold Sotheby's, 17 June 1986, lot 79;
Christie’s, 5 November 1993, lot 161, where purchased by the present owner

Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and Toronto, National Gallery of Ontario, James Jacques Joseph Tissot, 1968, no. 31;
London, Somerset House, London and the Thames: Paintings of Three Centuries, 1977, no. 82;
New York, American Federation of Arts, James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love, 22 September 1999-2 July 2000, no.185

Michael Wentworth, James Tissot: Catalogue Raisonné of His Print, 1978, illustrated pl.51b;
Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 1984, pp. 131, 133, 134, 152, illustrated pl.119;
Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz (ed.), James Tissot, exhibition catalogue for Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1984, cat. P. 120, illustrated fig.54;
Christopher Wood, Tissot, 1986, p. 92, illustrated pl.88

The panel appears to be sound and the work in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals a few faint and minor flecks of retouching to the edges and a couple of flecks to the boy's hat. Held in a gilt plaster frame with a linen inset.
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Shortly after his relocation to London in 1871, Tissot began a series of paintings depicting life beside the river Thames. The present work depicts the artist with his mistress and muse Kathleen Newton sat at a dock by the Falcon Tavern. The tavern was a favourite Thames-side subject for the artist, who produced both watercolour and oil pictures at the site in Gravesend around this time. The pair are seen waiting for a river ferry, and are joined by Kathleen’s niece Lilian Hervey, and her son Cecil George. In preparing for this painting, Tissot had the sitters pose in his garden at St. John’s Wood, where he used a mock fence in order to reconstruct the setting. Two existing photographs show how Tissot made subtle alterations to Kathleen’s posture, choosing for her to tilt her head as she watches Lilian anticipate the arrival of the ferry.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century, the Thames played an increasingly important role in both travel and industry. For Tissot, the river and its surrounding taverns and docks symbolised the essence of Englishness that he sought to capture during this period, making a clear departure from his earlier Parisian works. As Malcolm Warner notes ‘In creating a body of work unified by the theme of England’s major river, he laid claim to a subject literally and figuratively at the heart of the country.’ (Malcolm Warner, James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love, 1999, p61.) In the distance, a union flag flies almost indistinguishable against thick black smoke, serving as a fitting symbol of the industrial city. This carefully constructed setting serves as a theatrical backdrop for the personal subject matter, as Tissot muses upon his admiration for Mrs Newton. In considering both the social and contextual elements of the riverside scene, Tissot produces an image that confirms his reputation as an outstanding painter of Victorian life.

The Falcon was a popular tavern in Gravesend which existed at 3 East Street in various incarnations from 1622 to serve passengers from London before they embarked on sea-faring voyages. By the early nineteenth century it had also become a tourist attraction for people wanting to watch the river traffic and enjoy the fine dining. It is described in William Smith's A New Steam-boat Companion of 1834; 'The principal inns are on the brink of the Thames, an commanding the fine aquatic views for which the place is celebrated. The Falcon Tavern is in East-street, next to which is the Old Amsterdam.' The building depicting by Tissot in the present picture, painted c.1876, was an eighteenth-century timber-fronted structure and comprised of several balconies jutting out over the river. The wooden jetty, where customers could await the ferry, projected between the two bay-windows and large glazed balconies on the upper-floors of which were dining-rooms with fine Thames views. The Captain's Daughter of 1873 (Southampton City Art Gallery) depicts a young woman looking with binoculars from the upper-floor of the other balcony with the jetty behind her. Another painting titled Waiting for the Ferry (private collection) depicts the same view as the present painting but omits the children and depicts Kathleen gazing out the picture. A sketch for the present picture omits the figures entirely (they were painted in from the photograph) and meticulously captures the architecture of the tavern. It only survived in this form for a few more years and was partially destroyed by fire and washed away in 1882 during a gale to be replaced by a more sturdy red-brick structure. The tavern closed in 1939 and was demolished in 1961.

One of the previous owners of Waiting for the Ferry was Mrs. Viva King a prominent London socialite with a taste for Victorian paintings who in the 1920s was a beautiful and vivacious free spirit, described by Osbert Sitwell as the “Queen of Bohemia”.  Viva's husband was Willie King, a curator at the British Museum.