Katherine Keenum

An article in the Guardian, Discovered: a lost possible inspiration for Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, describes this painting by her sister, Vanessa Bell, which will viewed in public for the first time in sixty years when it goes on view at Sotheby's in London in November. Vanessa gave the picture to Virginia just as the writer was beginning to draft her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. It's tempting to some—and makes for good marketing—to assume that the painting helped Virginia visualize the party as she wrote. But there's no proof, and it certainly isn't necessary. Readers, moreover, are free to rely solely on Woolf's words and their own imaginations. Still, it will be an interesting experiment, don't you think, to read or reread the novel with this image in mind?

Website alert: Looking for illustrations of English and European villages by various artists in the 20th C? Have I got a link for you! Go to Villages in Art and Illustration at Slap Happy Larry—a site that looks worth exploring.

Blog post alert: This portrait by Hanna Hirsch-Pauli of sculptor, Jenni Lagerberg tickled me by its Japonisme, the mischievous look in the subject's eye, and those sleeves! The sleeves helped me date the picture to around 1895, thanks to a well-illustrated post, Sleeve Shifts of the 1890s at Historical Sewing.com. Its author, Jennifer Rosbrugh, makes the point that fashion ideas are sometimes taken to an extreme over a short period of time and then disappear—which is what happened with puffed sleeves.

A post on a pastel portrait by the Norwegian artist, Asta Nørregaard, led me to an article, Revisiting Asta Nørregaard in the Studio, by Carina Rech, which contains a great deal of information about the artist and provides examples of her work. Among them is this self-portrait, painted in Paris, when Nørregaard was working on a commissioned altarpiece. While working on that painting (just visible on the easel to the left), she had moved into a new studio and wrote a friend about having to adjust to the new lighting. You can see how much light was on her mind from the way it slants through the window and illuminates her palette and her own right side. The painting strikes me as very concrete, yet mystical; a picture of solitude and dedication, of self-assurance and of questioning. Although it can supply details to the historical novelist, it's too good to try to turn into a story.