Lot 89: HENRY WOODS, (BRITISH 1846-1921), "LA TOMBOLA"

HENRY WOODS
(british 1846-1921)
"LA TOMBOLA"
Signed and located ''Henry Woods Venice'' bottom left, oil on canvas laid to masonite
35 1/4 x 27 3/8 in. (89.5 x 69.5cm)
provenance:
Private Collection, Illinois.
exhibited:
Royal Academy of the Arts, London, United Kingdom, 1904.
literature:
J. Greig, Henry Woods, Royal Academician, London: 1915, p. 30, illustrated facing p. 22.
note:
Born into a middle-class English family in Warrington, Henry Woods is best known for his paintings documenting everyday people and their lives in Venice, having first visited the city of canals in 1876. He also painted in nearby Serra Valle and Cenada. Prior to establishing his permanent residency in Venice, Woods began to establish his career as a full-time painter with studies at the South Kensington Art School in London, where he went on to befriend fellow artist Luke Fildes. After a stint as an illustrator at The Graphic in London, Woods began exhibiting paintings at the Royal Academy. Once established in Venice, Woods turned away from the subject matter of canals, palaces, and gondoliers, and instead focused on genre scenes. The present work, like other paintings completed during and after this period, was exhibited at the Royal Academy as Woods maintained contacts in England and exhibited at the R.A. nearly every year between 1873 and 1915. By 1893, he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy. The present work depicts a group of women enjoying themselves whilst gambling in a tiny passageway beside the Giudecca canal. In providing some background on the painting, Woods biographer James Greig writes: "A bevy of girls mildly excited in a gambling game played mainly on fête days in the little-frequented paths along the Guidecca canal. Each Signorina has a card plotted and numbered, and from a bag which is passed round each player takes a tiny block of wood. The winner is she who first fills up the numbered spaces of her card" (Greig, ibid, p. 26).