Signed with monogram and dated l.l.: 1897/JES and inscribed l.l. Pigeons for “Beauty at the Fountain” bought by Lawrence Hodson/ New Gallery 1898

Watercolour with bodycolour and pencil, 13.5 by 10 cm (5 ¼ by 4 ins) (frame size 21 by 17.5 cm)

Provenance: the artist’s cousin Isabel Harlock and thence by descent

The present work is a study for the pigeons perched on the fountain to the right of Southall’s 1897-8 tempera painting Beauty Seeing the Image of Her Home in the Fountain (Private Collection (fig.xx, below)). According to notes by Southall from the time, the artist took the painting to Sir Edward Burne-Jones on 24 November 1897 just prior to its completion, who took issue with the face but “admired the rest very much (and) liked the “little chap” on fountain and the pigeons VERY much also her hands and arms…” (quoted Birmingham Catalogue, under cat.no.B3, p.34).