This beautiful late 19th-century oil painting by English artist Sir Ernest Albert Waterlow RA PRWS (1850-1919) depicts a girl catching her dress on a thorn while further ahead, a man and small child continue their walk towards a distant village.
It's an apparently insignificant occurrence. The young woman bends to free the hem of her dress while the others wander onwards, seemingly unaware of her predicament. Yet Waterlow's title draws our attention specifically to this moment and, in doing so, introduces a little uncertainty. Who are these three figures? Is the older man her father, accompanied by a younger sibling? Are they a young family? Or has Waterlow simply brought three country figures together to create a passing narrative?
Victorian audiences delighted in pictures that encouraged precisely this kind of speculation, and Waterlow wisely provides no resolution. There's even the possibility of reading the title metaphorically. The woman is quite literally Caught on a Thorn, but her separation from the others and momentary stillness invite us to imagine a story beyond what is shown. It's enough to set the mind wandering without disturbing the painting's essential tranquillity.
The landscape itself is beautifully observed. Two slender birches rise through the composition, their silvery trunks providing a strong vertical counterpoint to the winding stream below. Fresh spring vegetation is picked out with delicate touches of green, cream and yellow, while scattered blossom and young leaves give the countryside an appealing sense of renewal. In the distance, cottages emerge softly from the landscape beneath an expansive pearly sky.
Painted when Waterlow was 31, Caught on a Thorn predates many of the institutional honours that would later establish him among Britain's leading landscape painters. Yet the qualities for which he became admired are already evident: careful observation, refined colouring and, above all, an instinctive understanding of the gentle poetry of everyday life.
Signed/dated in the lower right and held in a gilt frame.
Learn more about Ernest Albert Waterlow in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 26” x 31” / 66cm x 79cm
Year of creation: 1881
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Canvas relined. Areas of fine and settled craquelure, as you would expect. The paint layer is stable. Frame in good condition with minor age-related wear.
Artist’s auction maximum: £22,000 achieved in 1995 for ‘May’.
Our reference: BRV2343
