Artist and art teacher Áine Andrews returns with another series of lectures on Famous Paintings and their Hidden Histories. For the first installment of this six part lecture series, Áine will focus on The Goldfish Bowl by Walter Osborne, recounting its history, as well as that of the artist and his story.

The Goldfish Bowl by Walter Osborne, Crawford Collection Cork

Over the years Walter Osborne painted many portraits of his niece Violet Stockley who came to live with the family after her mother died in childbirth. In this charming and tender work the little girl sits on the lap of an older playmate, facing the viewer, as they gaze quietly at fish swimming in their bowl. The two sit with hands intertwined in a large, upholstered armchair in a dim parlour, behind which we can vaguely make out some framed paintings hanging on the wall.

The painting clearly shows the influence on the artist of French Impressionism. This can be seen in the loose brush strokes and the blue, pink and purple shadows of the dress that make its whiteness particularly striking against the blurred outlines of the orange fish.

The painting, which has been in the Crawford collection since 1925, featured in the recent exhibition ‘Homecoming’ in the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. The exhibition charts Osborne’s trajectory from his student days in Dublin and Antwerp through his sojourn in Brittany and his early practice in England before returning to his native city to care for his niece and aging parents following the death of his beloved sister Violet in 1893.