Vanessa Bell
18 1/2 x 23 3/4 inches (framed)
Provenance
Ex. Coll: Estate of Vanessa Bell; to Bloomsbury Workshop, London, England; Christie's, New York, NY c. 2004; to private collection, USA to present.
Exhibitions
Exhibited:
Chairs inset with ovals of needlepoint based on this image were exhibited as part of the Music Room installation by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in a 1932 exhibition at Lefevre Gallery in London.
Literature
Literature:
Reed, Christopher. Bloomsbury Rooms: Modernism, Subculture, and Domesticity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. pp. 268-271.
Vanessa Bell
(British, 1979-1961)
View out the Window
oil pastel on paper
12 1/2 x 16 inches
18 1/2 x 23 3/4 inches (framed)
signed (at lower left) VB Estate Stamp
framed with a gold beveled 8 ply mat to museum conservation standards with a fine reproduction French gold leaf frame.
This pastel is a beautiful work by Vanessa Bell. It is also important as it served as the design for the oval needlepoint pattern featured on a suite of six cane back chairs inset with ovals of needlepoint created by Vanessa Bell. Virginia Woolf, Vanessa's famous author-sister, purchased the chairs at an exhibition of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant's work at Lefevre Gallery in London in 1932. In his book, Bloomsbury Rooms, Reed writes, "Woolf's subsidy of the music room ultimately earned her several of its' parts: a set of caned side chairs with embroidered panels, a cabinet, a mirror in a painted frame and a three paneled screen painted by Vanessa Bell..." (p. 272).
The six chairs were a focal point of Virginia and Leonard Wolff's dining room at Monk's House in Rodmell,, England. The remain in the house to this day. The view depicted in the drawing is reminiscent of the view from Talland House, St. Ives, where Vanessa and Virginia spent their summers as children and the setting for Wolff's book, To the Lighthouse.