Date: after 1893
Place: Waikanae
Media: watercolour on paper pasted on to board
Dimensions: 278 × 361 mm
Catalogue number: 2023–1–29
Credit line: The Field Collection, Toi Mahara
Isabel Field often painted the lagoon at Waikanae. A note in one of her sketchbooks states that ‘The best way to get the effect of a passing shower is to paint the sky as it appears just before and then lay the shower over it using the first sky as a base.’ (W M Hodgkins sketchbook, Alexander Turnbull Library E-037-q). This process has been followed here, although she has portrayed the moment when the sky has begun to clear and the sun to shine weakly on the water. The work shows Isabel’s preference for rich blues.
In 1901 Frances Hodgkins wrote to Rachel Hodgkins, ‘Les A. [Anderlys] would have suited Sis, such beautiful landscape, the Seine at its best which means a lot—tall poplars and sedgy banks that Sis would have painted deliciously. How I wish she and her clever brush were here with me. She would make their hair curl with her colour and technique. I have not seen any watercolour as good as hers anywhere.’ (Linda Gill, Letters of Frances Hodgkins, 1993, p101).
(Sourced from notes by Avenal McKinnon, Frances Hodgkins, the link with Kapiti: The Field Collection, Mahara Gallery, 2000).