Emily Mary Osborn (British, 1828-1925) A golden daydream

Emily Mary Osborn (British, 1828-1925) A golden daydream signed with monogram (lower left) oil on canvas 53.5 x 91.5cm (21 1/16 x 36in). Footnotes: Provenance Anon. sale, Sotheby's, Belgravia, 18 April 1978, lot 88. Exhibited London, Royal Academy, 1877, no. 461 (as Dreaming Awake). Birmingham Society of Artists, 1878, no. 431. Literature Art Journal, September 1877, p. 269. Emily Mary Osborn was one of the pioneering generation of women who succeeded in their ambitions to be professional artists at a time when opportunities for women were limited. She is best-known now for her picture Nameless and Friendless of 1857 (Tate) perhaps the most famous Victorian painting depicting the fight for women's rights – it shows a melancholic widow selling a painting in an art-dealer's gallery amid the leering gaze of male customers and the unscrupulous dealer. Emily was the daughter of a parish minister but as the eldest of nine siblings, his financial support of her artistic training was limited. Her mother, Mary was an amateur artist and also encouraged her daughter, 'and watched with pride the clever portraits Emily drew of her brothers and sisters' (The Lady, 2 September 1886). Emily's infancy was spent in Kentish Town in London but the family moved to West Tilbury when she was five and there was little opportunity for artistic expression. She later recalled having to resort to making her own paints using flower-petals from the garden soaked in methylated spirits. When the family moved back to London in 1842 Reverend Edward Osborn was able to pay for Emily to attend drawing classes at the Dickenson Academy on Maddox Street where she was taught by the artist John Mogford. After three months at the academy Rev. Osborn could no longer afford his daughter's lessons but one of the drawing-masters, James Mathews Leigh recognised her talent and offered to teach her privately. She exhibited her first picture at the Royal Academy in 1851 and she showed there every year until 1868 when her mother died and the devastated Emily ceased to paint for a few years. For six months, she and one of her sisters devoted themselves to nursing the wounded soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War. Emily seems to have been in Germany studying until at least 1870 when she sent a painting to the Royal Academy in London from an address in Munich. She was certainly back in London by 1873 and had resumed her career as a successful artist. Her work was purchased by Queen Victoria and by a Mrs Sturgis who commissioned a life-sized portrait of herself and her children for a cost of 200 guineas. Emily was also supported by the artist Barbara Bodichon and Lady Burdett-Coutts both of whom commissioned portraits. Osborn signed the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage in 1889, by which time she was a well-respected and venerable artist. She lived until she was ninety-seven, never marrying but living for many years with a woman named Mary Elizabeth Dunn in St John's Wood until her death in 1925. The present picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1877 as Dreaming Awake, described by the Art Journal as 'a figure subject showing a handsome young girl 'Dreaming Awake' in her hammock' (September 1877, p. 269) It was subsequently shown at the Birmingham Society of Artists the following year as A Golden Day Dream. The fashionably eclectic interior with the verdure tapestries, Persian carpets and exotic lilies, is typical of paintings of the Aesthetic Movement as is the languid subject of idle reverie. With this picture Osborn showed herself to be a versatile artist able to deviate from her usual subjects of portraiture, childhood or social adversity. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing