Polishing Pans, by Marianne Stokes, née Preindlsberger (1855-1927). c.1887. Oil on canvas. H 59 x W 79.3 cm. Collection: Walker Art Gallery, accession no. WAG 658, gift of George Audley, 1928 (though this is given, at least initially, as a loan in Magdalen Evans's account, p. 132). Image kindly made available on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
One of Stokes's earlier ones from the St Ives years, this can be compared to Lantern Light, of 1888. There is no lantern here, but light gleams on the pans, and on the girl's right arm, as she bends diligently over her task, and on her right arm. The lovely copperware has a significant local relevance, because of Cornwall's copper mining industry. Nearby Newlyn was soon to become the very centre of Cornish art copperware. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Evans, Magdalen. Utmost Fidelity: The Painting Lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes. Clifton, Bristol: Sansom, 2009.
Polishing Pans. Art UK. Web. 8 June 2023.
Created 8 June 2023