14 5 Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941) In the Conservatory Watercolour, 25.5 x 17.3cm (10 x 6.8”) Provenance: with Christopher Wood Gallery, London ‘The young lady knows how to look at her subjects with the eyes of a well- trained artist; she can make good pictures out of simple and indeed trivial material; and all her contributions are extremely interesting and even beau- tiful, although there is not a shred of story, anecdote, incident or an atom of pathos beyond that which always attends really artistic representations of homely nature’ wrote the art critic of the Athenaeum in 1897. He went on to say, ‘These pictures command attention by the massing and breadth of their chiaroscuro and the solid way in which they have been handled’. Under the early influence of the landscapist Paul Jacob Naftel; the animal painter William Frank Calderon; and the Newlyn artists, Norman Garstin and Stanhope Forbes, Mildred Anne Butler developed her signature style of broad washes, strong colours and a sympathetic understanding of light and shade. This selection of works represents her penchant for pastoral views featuring cattle and genre views of continental towns. Having first ventured to Europe in 1885, from 1905 she regularly took the waters at Aix le Bains. Though strongly associated with scenes of her house and gardens at Kil- murry in County Kilkenny, Butler was a widely travelled lady and a keen businesswoman. When, in 1896, her work The Morning Bath was bought for the Chantrey Bequest (Tate Gallery) for the princely sum of £50 it was the first work by a woman artist to be chosen by them. The following year Lady Cadogan, the Vicereine in Dublin, gave one of her watercolours to the Princess of Wales. Queen Mary owned several of Butler’s works, including a miniature painting of crows designed to hang in Queen Mary’s dollshouse at Windsor Castle. €1,000 - 1,500.