We are grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance with this catalogue note.

This work is one of the earliest extant examples from Vanessa Bell’s early modernist phase; other examples having been destroyed during the Blitz. Unlike some of her contemporaries, Bell’s work was not immediately transformed by her exposure to Roger Fry’s First Post-Impressionist Exhibition; instead, she carefully assimilated these new influences, experimenting with strong colour and simplified compositions. This is made clear by comparison between Studland Beach, a bold interpretation of an everyday scene that contrasts sharply with Croquet, painted earlier that year.

By late summer 1912, Bell had been invited to exhibit in the Second Post Impressionist Exhibition, resulting in an intense period of artistic activity. It was during this period, in September and October, that the present work was painted. Bell was staying with Virginia and Leonard Woolf at Asheham House in the South Downs, where two of the four works she later exhibited were painted. During the latter half of their stay, the weather worsened, and Vanessa and Duncan remained indoors painting still-lifes and interior scenes. One of the works was Nosegay (whereabouts unknown), which shows a similar composition to the present work and likely preceded it. In both works, the flowers are reduced to simpler, near-geometric forms, with a brightening of colour that grew in intensity the following year. LH