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William Stott Of Oldham(British, 1857-1900)Diana, Twilight and Dawn
21 – 28 May 2025, 12:00 EDT
Online, Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$15,000 - US$20,000
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Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
Bids (Bonhams Skinner)
Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
William Stott Of Oldham (British, 1857-1900)
Diana, Twilight and Dawn
signed 'WILLIAM STOTT OF OLDHAM' (lower left); identified on multiple typed and handwritten labels (affixed to the reverse of the frame) and on an inscribed (carved into the stretcher bar); with a label from Chas. A. Jackson Gallery, Manchester (affixed to the reverse of the frame)
oil on canvas
123.0 x 148.0 cm (48 7/16 x 58 1/4 in).
framed 160.0 x 186.5 x 14.0 cm (63 x 73 7/16 x 5 1/2 in).
signed 'WILLIAM STOTT OF OLDHAM' (lower left); identified on multiple typed and handwritten labels (affixed to the reverse of the frame) and on an inscribed (carved into the stretcher bar); with a label from Chas. A. Jackson Gallery, Manchester (affixed to the reverse of the frame)
oil on canvas
123.0 x 148.0 cm (48 7/16 x 58 1/4 in).
framed 160.0 x 186.5 x 14.0 cm (63 x 73 7/16 x 5 1/2 in).
Footnotes
Provenance
Estate of Nicholas Polachones, Portland, Oregon.
By descent through the family of the previous.
Bonhams, London, 19th Century Paintings, June 14, 2006, lot 64.
The present private collection (acquired from the previous).
Literature
Roger Brown, William Stott of Oldham: A Comet Rushing to the Sun (2023), exhibition catalogue for Gallery Oldham, Greater Manchester, England.
Christopher Wood, Victorian Painting (London: Bulfinch Press, 1999).
R.A.M. Stevenson, 'William Stott of Oldham', The Studio, October, 1894.
Alice Corkran, 'William Stott of Oldham', Scottish Arts Review, April, 1889.
N.B.
William Stott began his formal artistic training at a young age in his hometown of Oldham and at the Manchester School of Art. At age 20, he left to study in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904), where he found quick success. He was a leading influence in the Anglo-American artist's community of Grez-sur-Loing and beyond. He regularly exhibited at the Paris Salon, medalling in 1882 for his work The Bathing Place (Neue Pinakothek, Munich). After his return to England by the late 1880s, Stott began to expand his oeuvre beyond the landscapes that his was initially known for. He began to paint more classical and allegorical themes with works like The Nymph (1886), The Birth of Venus (1887), and the present work, Diana, Twilight and Dawn (1889). In his latter years he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy before dying unexpectedly in 1900 at the age of 42, while on a ferry to Ireland.
Diana, Twilight and Dawn was painted in the winter of 1889 and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in the spring of 1890. Stott depicts Diana, the moon goddess, symbolically attended on either side by twilight and dawn. The work was praised in the 1894 monograph of Stott by critic R.A.M. Stevenson. Stevenson devoted a full-page illustration to the work, and describes it as "a lovely scheme of silvered colour, shimmering leaves, iris flowers and ivory flesh." The work was shown at several memorial exhibitions after Stott's death before being sold by his son at Christie's in November 1913 and bought by Charles Jackson, a Manchester art dealer. It was thought to have been lost, but recently re-appeared in the USA before its 2006 sale at Bonhams, London.