John Atkinson Grimshaw

Mrs I. G. Appleby (acquired by 1979)

Christie's, London, 31 May 1995, lot 161

Private Collection, London

Sotheby’s, London, 13 December 2018, lot 52 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Leeds City Art Gallery; Southampton Art Gallery and Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Atkinson Grimshaw 1836-1893, 1979-1980, no. 29 (lent by Private collection of Mrs I. G. Appleby)

Harrogate, Mercer Art Gallery and London, Guildhall Art Gallery, Atkinson Grimshaw, Painter of Moonlight, 2011-2012, n.n.

Atkinson Grimshaw 1836-1893, exh. cat., Leeds 1979, pp 19, 30, no. 29, illustrated

Sandra K. Payne, Knight's Errand, Carlisle 1987, illustrated opposite p.16

Alexander Robertson, Atkinson Grimshaw, London 1988, p. 39, no. 39, illustrated in color

Jane Sellars (ed.), Atkinson Grimshaw, Painter of Moonlight, exh. cat., London 2011, p. 60, fig. 67, illustrated

The model for My Wee White Rose was Miss Agnes Leefe, a former actress from the Leeds Grand Theatre who joined the Grimshaw household around 1878. Among Leefe’s earliest appearances in Grimshaw’s art was in The Cradle Song (sold in these rooms, 10 December 2012, lot 41) where she is depicted in her role as governess to the Grimshaw children. Leefe is also thought to have posed for the various versions of Iris, the nudity of which may account for Mrs Grimshaw’s concern. There is a photograph of Agnes Leefe at Knostrop, dressed in the same white dress and bonnet worn in My Wee White Rose. Whatever her exact position in the Grimshaw household, her life was short and she died in 1890 at Knostrop Hall, nursed by Mrs Theodosia Grimshaw.