Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

Purchased from the artist by Sir Patrick Ford, Westerdunes, North Berwick, and thence to his son Sir Henry Russell Ford, his sale, Christie's, Glasgow, 11 December 1986, lot 204, where purchased by the parents of the present owners

Original canvas. Some occasional signs of craquelure and paint separation, and a small spot of paint loss centre of lower edge; otherwise the work appears in good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held under glass in an ebony frame; unexamined out of frame.
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Reflections was probably painted in 1907, a few years after Peploe moved to his new studio at 32 York Place in Edinburgh. The fluid energetic brush-strokes and restrained colouring are reminiscent of the famous Girl in White of c.1907 (Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery) and By Firelight dated 1907 (Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 2006, lot 128). The model for these pictures was probably the beautiful Peggie MacRae: '... a charming, witty, and attractive girl, who had the rare gift of complete grace which made her every movement interesting; she dropped naturally into poses which were balanced and harmonious and, better still, she immediately impersonated the figure she was asked to represent... Peggie Macrae fitted perfectly into the pale grey, polished black and white sofa of Peploe's new setting, and she was the original of many of the figure pictures in pink, grey, and black.' (Stanley Cursiter, Peploe; An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of his Work, 1947, p. 17) Peggie was much sought after by artists and posed for several portrait painters who dressed her in the costumes of the various notable ladies and debutantes they were painting when the subjects of the portraits were unable to sit. She was employed by Charles Mackie for one of his Venetian pictures and according to Peggie, she posed for every figure with only one exception, the dog. Perhaps her most famous incarnation was as the allegories of Eloquence and History in Pittendrigh MacGillivray's monument to Gladstone in St. Andrew's Square.

Peploe was an artist who could not settle for long in one studio and liked to move to allow a new environment to challenge and stimulate his art. In 1905, this restlessness resulted in his move to York Place which seems to have inspired a new way of painting. The new studio was the antithesis of his former one at Devon Place, with lofty proportions and large north facing windows. It had been built for the great portrait painter Raeburn in 1795 in the elegant taste of the eighteenth century. As Peploe's biographer Stanley Cursiter wrote, 'It was in this room that Raeburn mastered the problem which for him held a perennial interest - how to use light. In his early pictures we can see how he experimented with different effects of lighting.' (ibid Cursiter, p.16) Likewise Peploe began a series of pictures at York Place which investigated the effects of lighting upon still-lifes and figurative subjects. 'If his [Raeburn's] ghost remained in his old surroundings, there must have been times when, looking over Peploe's shoulder, he applauded the verve and assurance with which another brush repeated again the old magic of a sure touch and the darks placed on the half-tones with precision and faultless tone.' (ibid Cursiter, p. 19) In its dramatic study of flickering refracted tone, Reflections is one of the most startlingly fluid paintings of this period with echoes of Lavery and Walton's flamboyant elegance. The painting is built up of soft grey and pink tones, startlingly contrasted with glossy black and a flash of jade-green. The tones were all suggested by the decoration of the studio itself with its walls painted grey and pink by Peploe and its polished black linoleum floor. At this time Peploe's technique of paint application became broader 'and he adopted a medium which gave a richer surface and which appeared to hold the brush marks with a still fuller body of paint... In the whole of his earlier manner, when the rich flowing technique absorbed his interest, there is nothing finer than the work done at York Place.' (ibid Cursiter, p. 18)

The painterly qualities of the present work combined with its en-grisaille tones is suggestive of the work of fellow artist Whistler. The subject of a woman looking in a mirror recalls Whistler’s Symphony in White of 1865 (Tate), although the energetic brushwork in Peploe’s picture is far closer to the work of his other great influence, Édouard Manet. Manet’s Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère of 1882 (Courtauld Gallery, London) includes the artistic device of the mirror reflecting the face of the female figure. J.D. Fergusson commented on Peploe’s fascination with Manet’s technique in the introduction to the catalogue for his exhibition at the Gallerie Baillie in 1905, ‘Before we met, Peploe and I had both been to Paris… where we were both very impressed with the Impressionists…Manet and Monet were the painters who fixed our direction – In Peploe’s case, Manet especially.’ (Billcliffe Roger, The Scottish Colourists, 1989) Reflections from mirrors also figure strongly in the work of F.C.B. Cadell, who during a period prior to the First World War produced a series of portrait paintings in sumptuous interiors which displayed reflections from an over-mantle.