Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, from whom acquired by
Robert Macaulay Stevenson, thence by descent to
Jean Macaulay Stevenson
Professor Ronald and Mrs Georgina Pickvance
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
Limerick, Hunt Museum, Lavery & Osborne, Observing Life, June-September 2019, unnumbered (as Study of 'A Fair Flower)

Discovered in 2017 amongst the papers of Robert Macaulay Stevenson, the present head study of Bella Cullen is a souvenir of friendship between two artists.

Lavery describes Miss Cullen as the model who 'caught a chill' while posing for his paintings of Mary, Queen of Scots, adding that 'six months later I went to her funeral'. Written over fifty years after the events they describe, memory has roundly compressed circumstances that emerge in more detail in the Stevenson papers.

In the autumn of 1887, having returned from a painting expedition to Drumalis, at Larne in county Antrim, Lavery resumed his two large ambitious canvases reimagining the Scots queen's retreat after the battle of Langside, employing Cullen as his model for these and other paintings. On occasions when she was present in his Glasgow studio, Stevenson joined him, and they worked side-by-side from the model.

Stevenson, described as the 'prophet' and critical voice of the Glasgow School, was obtaining advice from his friend. Lavery 'believes in me' he confessed to his fiancé, Jean Shields. It was clear from the start that Cullen's health was poor, and with the rigours of posing she became increasingly unwell. When she heard of her distress, Shields was keen to send her 'some little thing'. By the following spring, however, her condition, probably tuberculosis, had improved when both artists visited her at High Blantyre in March. Nevertheless, with the onset of colder weather at the end of September, Cullen's sister arrived at Stevenson's studio to report a serious deterioration. Both artists then returned to the little terrace house near Hamilton on 4 October, where she lay on her deathbed, and by the end of the month she was gone.

Inscribed 'À MON AMI' we can assume that the present work is a memento of happy times when both artists worked together, Lavery with his pochade box containing rosewood panels. The association with Stevenson and Shields makes it possible to identify Cullen as the model for A Fair Flower (1887, Private Collection), exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in February 1888.

As a fellow artist and member of the Glasgow Boys, 'Macaulay', as Stevenson was known to the 'brotherhood', would have enjoyed the alluring quality of the present study, noting the splendid zigzag of her lapels, the swift, 'square brush' notation of her corsage and the hauteur with which she holds the gaze of the spectator – a 'look' confirmed in the 'fair flower's' tilt of the head. It would be entirely in character for the painter, observing his friend's pleasure in a pretty face, to inscribe the picture, 'à mon ami', and present it to him. Such spontaneous acts of generosity were not unusual.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for compiling this catalogue entry.