File:Louis Welden Hawkins Solitude.jpg

English: Solitude, painting by Louis Welden Hawkins, circa 1890

Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 57 x 26.5 cm Signed: Lower centre: L WELDEN HAWKINS

Provenance:

United Arts Gallery, Boussod & Valadon The Goupil Galleries (116-117 New Bond Street, London) canvas stamp; London Artist’s Association (Cooling Galleries, 92 New Bond Street, remains of label) circa 1920; Christies South Kensington, 7 March 2002, lot 555; Private collection, UK.

"The theme of the young girl, the innocent lost in reverie, was a favourite of Hawkins, reflecting his increasing interest in religious and mystical themes that touch on the spiritual or other worldly, subjects that he embraced from the early 1890s onwards. Here a young woman stands facing the viewer, apparently quietly reading from what may be a Missal. Above her we see two crows, one perched on a branch and the other in flight, symbols of magic and mystery that in early cultures were thought to lead the soul to eternal rest. Here, the most intelligent of birds, capable of recognising and remembering the human face, may also symbolise a new beginning or a message from beyond the grave. The brown and reddish colours of the over-grown foliage behind her and the bare branches of the tree suggest a late autumn setting, while a similar church can be seen in the artist’s painting, the Procession of Souls (1893). She wears the simple dress and mantle of a rural peasant, her face framed by a brilliant white bonnet, seemingly oblivious to the her corvidian companions."