Footnotes

• Provenance:
  Purchased circa 1900 from Harris’ Summer Exhibition in Plymouth
  Thence by descent.
  
  Exhibited:
  Penzance, Penlee House Gallery and Museum, April-June 2000.
  
  This painting appears in Tuke’s register of paintings as (R 321) and was painted in July 1900. This was the summer Tuke completed another larger painting of the same small rowing boat with two boys in it called ‘Summer Evening’ which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1901 and is illustrated in black and white in Maria Tuke Sainsbury’s biography of her brother, page 133.
  
  Tuke describes in his diary of 2 July 1900 'Sketch all day of Georgie and Georgie Williams in punt.'
  
  ‘Keeping her off’ features Georgie Fouracre, the older of the two boys pushing the boat away with a boat hook. Georgie Fourarce was the son of Mrs Elizabeth Fourcarce, Tuke’s housekeeper at Pennance cottage. Georgie also modelled for ‘Summer Evening’ and many other paintings by Tuke. The seated model at the oars in this painting is Georgie Williams, who was one of the Williams family who lived in the cottage beyond Pennance. Tuke was using the two Georgies for his other major Pennance wood picture ‘To the Morning Sun’ at the same time as getting them to model for ‘Keeping her off’.
  
  The painting was originally bought by Harris, an art dealer in Plymouth and sold at an exhibition there.
  
  We would like to thank Catherine Wallace for her kind assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

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Category: Fine Art / 19th Century Paintings

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