The right of way

In this genre painting by William Lee-Hankey, a young woman sits by a pond, minding a gaggle of geese. The focus on a single female figure, so obviously relaxed and at home in this rural environment, recalls a world of simple values. Effortlessly executed in fluid washes of watercolour, there is just enough detail to convey the impression of the scene. On the occasion of a major solo exhibition of Lee-Hankey's work in London in 1906, English art critic and painter Alfred Lys Baldry described him as 'an absolute purist' in his watercolours, noting 'he paints entirely with transparent pigments, and never has recourse to opaque colours; his brushwork is broad and confident - free, on the one hand, from affectation of showy cleverness, and, on the other hand, from niggling minuteness or over-elaboration' ('The Art of William Lee-Hankey, R. I.', The Studio, Vol 36, no. 154, January 1906).

Lee-Hankey was born and raised in Chester, practicing first as a designer of furniture, carpets, textiles and wallpapers, before studying at Chester School of Art, and gaining a scholarship to study at what was to become the Royal College of Art in 1894. He was a leading painter of his generation and became renowned in his art for focussing on peasant life that was felt to be fast disappearing. He was associated with the Newlyn School in England, and in 1904 built a house at Le Touquet, and established a studio in nearby Etaples, a thriving centre for artists from England, America and Australasia. A commentator in 1917 noted that his peasant girls and children 'are nearly all beautiful' ('Tis', 'W. Lee Hankey: his place in art', in Colour, vol. 7, no. 2, Sept 2017, p. 29), but it has also been observed that he does not overly sentimentalise his subjects.

The 'goose girl' was a popular subject for artists from the 1880s through to the 1920s, serving both as a scene of rural observation, and also referencing the Grimm Brothers fairytale, in which the goose girl is actually a princess whose place has been switched with her maid.

The right of way was owned by the artist Dorothy Kate Richmond, who in 1928 gifted it to the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and whose collection was gifted in turn to the National Art Gallery in 1936. It is very likely that Richmond met Lee-Hankey during her travels in England and Europe with Frances Hodgkins between 1902 and 1904.

Rebecca Rice, July 2021

References:

Lot entry: https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-4027211/?intObjectID=4027211

'William Lee-Hankey', Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_Hankey