Alfred William Parsons

1 portrait by Alfred William Parsons

Alfred William Parsons, by Alfred William Parsons, circa 1888 -NPG 2674 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Alfred William Parsons

by Alfred William Parsons
Pencil on paper cut from sketchblock, circa 1888
7 1/2 in. x 6 3/4 in. (189 mm x 170 mm)
NPG 2674

This portraitback to top

According to the donor, this portrait was done ‘for Mrs Harrison who was a great friend of his and Edwin Abbey’s’. [1] Parsons and US-born painter Edwin Austin Abbey were close friends among the artists who summered at Broadway, Worcestershire. It was not any sort of commission, however, as the image is cut from a sketchbook and has on the reverse part of another figure, a fragment of a bearded head. It would therefore seem to be an informal work. The profile view is unusual for a self-portrait and if drawn from life would have required the deployment of two mirrors.

It perhaps dates from July 1888, when Parsons stayed with Abbey and John Singer Sargent at Shiplake on the river Thames,[2] near the home of Robert Harrison. Parsons designed the Harrisons’ garden at Shiplake Court, [3] and the couple owned several other works by him. Mrs Robert Harrison, née Helen Smith, is the presumed patron for this drawing, [4] although another Mrs Harrison was part of the same social set. Helen’s cousin-by-marriage, Mrs Lawrence (Peter) Harrison, née Alma Stretell, was with her husband a close friend of the Broadway group.

The work is slightly discoloured in a central oval area encircling head and shoulders, indicating an earlier mount.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) Letter from Harold Hartley to Sir Evan Charteris, 24 Jan. 1934, NPG RP 2674. This letter adds, ‘I always regard [Parsons’] work as an illustrator, especially in the series of books he did with Edwin Abbey, as his greatest achievement. They were both dear friends of mine.’
2) See Lucas 1921, vol.1, p.176.
3) This house was some 15 miles from the home of the donor at North Stoke, Oxon.
4) For Sargent’s 1886 portrait of Helen Smith Harrison, see Tate, TO7693

Physical descriptionback to top

Head-and-shoulders, profile to right, wearing skullcap, beard, tobacco pipe in mouth, back of upright chair lightly sketched to left.

Provenanceback to top

Probably Robert Harrison, from whose sale (Knight Frank & Rutley, 9–12 Mar. 1925) purchased by Harold Hartley, by whom gifted in 1934.

Reproductionsback to top

Fenwick 2004a, p.116.

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