Tissot Paintings
1836 - 1902 Painter, France, Victorian Neoclassicism
July: Specimen of a Portrait (Sea-Side), c.1878
Oil on canvas, 34 3/8 x 24 inches (87.5 x 61 cm)
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Figurative Art
This charming and stylish painting - July: Specimen of a Portrait (Sea-Side), the epitome of Tissot's work at the very height of his career, shows his muse and mistress Kathleen Newton reclining on an ottoman on a hot summer's day. She is seen contre jour, her head framed by a window through which appears a distant view of the harbour and lighthouse at Ramsgate, the well-known seaside resort on the Kent coast. The blinds are lowered against the glare and heat of the sun, but enough light filters through to caress the form of the casually posed, fashionably attired figure. It would be too much to describe this subtle and complex light effect as the true subject of the painting, but it certainly lends it piquancy and goes far to define its mood. Tissot seems to have been undecided as to the painting's title. When it was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878, it was called July: Specimen of a Portrait (Sea-Side), . Another painting shown with it was entitled Spring (Specimen of a Portrait), and although neither work was a portrait in the conventional sense, it seems likely that the subtitles were added in the hope of attracting portrait commissions. By the time Tissot left London in November 1882, he had decided to change the name to Seaside. The evidence for this is the old label on the back, inscribed in Tissot's own hand with both the new title and his London address, 17 Grove End Road. He retained this title when he included the picture in a large retrospective exhibition which he mounted at the Palais de l'Industrie in Paris in 1883 to bring the French public up to date with the evolution of Tissot paintings during the decade he had spent in England. Both titles have been used in the subsequent literature, or when the painting has been sold or re-exhibited.
