‘Flora’ by Ralph Peacock (1868-1946).

The painting – which depicts the Roman Goddess of Youth and Springtime – is signed by the artist and features one of his favourite models, the English society beauty, Edith Brignall. It is one of three portraits of her painted by Peacock in the summer of 1897, the two others being in the collection of Tate Britain. The goddess Flora was a popular figure with the Pre-Raphaelite movement and also featured in paintings by both John William Waterhouse and Evelyn de Morgan.

All of our paintings are offered in the finest condition they can be for their age having been professionally cleaned, conserved, and re-varnished. Clients should also note that tracked and signed for international shipping is complimentary.

Ralph Peacock entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1887 where he won a gold medal for figure painting, and (perhaps more surprisingly) the Creswick Prize for landscape painting. Whilst still at the Academy, Peacock was widely considered to be the most gifted English painter of his generation and the heir to the mantle of Leighton, Dicksee, and William Holman Hunt whose portrait he would go on to paint in 1902.

An immensely popular figural painter, Peacock was much in demand in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain and painted many superb society portraits of young English society beauties. Of all his many illustrious patrons and sitters probably the most famous was US President Herbert Hoover, the two becoming life-long friends. Peacock also achieved great success internationally, winning a gold medal in Vienna in 1898 and another in Paris at the Exposition Universelle of 1900.

Between 1888 and 1934 Ralph Peacock exhibited 94 paintings at the Royal Academy and numerous others at the Royal Society of British Artists, and the Grosvenor Gallery. Today, paintings by Peacock are to be found in the collections of Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Dimensions: (framed) 79cm x 69½cm (31” x 27½”)

Dimensions: (canvas only) 61cm x 50½cm (24” x 20”)

Medium: Oil on canvas.

Provenance: Private collection of Colonel Sir James Reynolds, 1^st Baronet, Dove Park, Woolton, Liverpool. Trinity House Maas Gallery, Duke Street, St James's, London.

Presentation: Newly commissioned bespoke gold metal leaf frame. All of the new frames we commission are especially made for us to order by one of the UK’s top period frame makers.

Condition: Very good. Professionally cleaned, restored, and re-varnished. Ready to hang.