Lot 159: John Ingle Lee (fl. 1868-1891)

John Ingle Lee (fl. 1868-1891)
The Gardener's Daughter
signed and inscribed 'No.2 The Gardener's Daughter/John Ingle Lee/153 Adelaide Road/London N.W.' (on a label attached to the reverse of the frame)
oil on canvas
9 1/8 x 7½ in. (23.2 x 19 cm.)

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Based in London and specialising in genre subjects, Lee exhibited one picture at the Royal Society of British Artists (The List of the Killed, 1871) and six at the Royal Academy (1878-80). The present work must be a somewhat earlier production, dating from the late 1860s. The sitter is clearly the same girl as appears, as a young mother with a baby in her lap, in Home, a picture dated 1869 which was sold in these Rooms, 24 June 1988, lot 104. It has been suggested that the man in that picture, seen tending an ivy-clad arch behind the mother and child, is a self-portrait, and the model for the mother and for The Gardener's Daughter may well have been the artist's wife. A date of c.1869 for our picture is confirmed by the fact that the address on the back (153 Adelaide Road, N.W.) is the same as that from which Lee sent a picture to Suffolk Street in 1871. By the time he came to show at the R.A. in 1878 he had moved to Hampstead Hill.

Yet another reason for dating The Gardener's Daughter to the late 1860s is that, like Home, it reflects the 'aesthetic' values prevalent at the time. The obvious influence is that of D.G. Rossetti, seen not only in the picture itself but in the design of the frame, which is clearly original. As Rossetti had long since ceased to exhibit by this date, the interesting possibility arises that Lee had some personal contact with him.

The artist is not to be confused with the short-lived Liverpool Pre-Raphaelite John J. Lee, one of whose most important works, The Bookstall, was sold in these Rooms, 25 October 1991, lot 51. It is conceivable, however, that there was a connection, since when John J. Lee moved to London in the mid 1860s, he took a house in Queen's Crescent, N.W., remarkably close to that of John Ingle Lee in Adelaide Road. Indeed if a link could be established, John J. Lee's Pre-Raphaelite affiliations might help to explain John Ingle Lee's knowledge of the work of Rossetti.