Herbert James Draper

This previously unrecorded picture dates to 1908 or 1909. The model appears to be Janet Fletcher, Draper's favourite sitter at this time, who posed for one of the attendants of the Goddess of Love in The Pearls of Aphrodite of 1908 (private collection). She was also the model for The Water Nixie in 1908 (private collection) in which she is also gathering water-flowers. In 1909 she posed for one of Draper's most famous paintings, Ulysses and the Sirens (Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and a replica at Leeds City Art Gallery) as the central siren.

Whilst the pose of the woman in Nymphaea may derive from a figure-study of a male model for one of the Argonauts in The Golden Fleece of 1904 (Bradford City Art Gallery) it also resembles the figure on the left in By Summer Seas of c. 1910 (sold in these Rooms, 15 July 2008, lot 47) and the two pictures may have evolved around the same time. The crouching pose of the woman gathering lilies and irises also recalls the famous Hylas and the Nymphs painted in 1896 by Draper's friend John William Waterhouse (Manchester City Art Gallery), which also depicts a lily-filled pool. It is also reminiscent of depictions of Persephone (Proserpine) gathering flowers on the banks of the river Styx before her abduction by Pluto - a subject also painted by Waterhouse. Like Waterhouse, Draper chose sensual and romantic subjects from classical mythology, often with settings beside water.

Water-lilies (Nymphaea) take their Latin name from the water-nymphs of Roman mythology, the various demi-goddesses that lived in every watercourse, pond and fountain - the limnads, naiads and potamids. The poisonous water-lilies, like the water-nymphs, were beautiful but hazardous.