Signed and dated l.r.: Barbara Jones/1940 and inscribed with title (verso)

Watercolour with gouache, 37 by 27.5 cm (14 ¾ by 10 ¾ ins)

Literature: Barbara Jones, Follies and Grottoes, Constable & Co., 1974 (2nd Ed.), illustrated (full page) p.158

Jones’s caption for this watercolour in the second edition of Follies and Grottoes (op cit) reads as follows: “The main room of the Grotto at Oatlands Park, painted before demolition. The wooden cone on the floor had fallen from ceiling and shows the simple carpenters’ work that was the basis of the elaborate shell decoration…These are probably the Chinese chairs, made of bamboo, for which the Duchess of York embroidered the cushions.” Jones lists the loss of the grotto (demolished in 1948) as a scandalous act of vandalism. She was fortunately able to visit it in her research for this book in 1940 when she made this watercolour – an important record of this extraordinary eighteenth century grotto interior.

The present work has been requested for the exhibition Parallel Lives: Nine Women Artists at St Barbe Gallery, Lymington (16th September 2023 - 13th January 2024).