Attr. John Absolon (1815-1895) British School Mid 19th.Century. Watercolour and pencil drawing. A study of a North African Woman, Inscribed on a label verso, 25.4 x 10.8cms. Provenance: with William Drummond, Covent Garden Gallery London.
A child prodigy, John Absolon began his career as a scene painter for the theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. From 1835 he spent four years in Paris, where he studied the technique of miniature painting. On his return to London he was elected a member of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours.
The Art Journal critic James Dafforne described him in 1892 as ‘one of the most popular of our figure-painters in water-colours’, and concluded that ‘his style of treatment is natural and unaffected, his pencilling free yet careful, and his colouring brilliant without exaggeration, or a straining after effect by violent contrasts’.