Women Drying Selves by Pond
1740/50
Medium
Watercolor and gouache, over traces of graphite, on tan laid paper, laid down on tan laid paper
Dimensions
31.7 × 41.6 cm (12 1/2 × 16 7/16 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
114554
Art Historical Context
John William Taverner’s “Women Drying Selves by Pond,” created around 1740–50, captures a quiet, intimate moment of everyday life beside a body of water. The scene, rendered in delicate detail, suggests the leisure and natural settings favored in mid-eighteenth-century British art, where artists often turned to pastoral subjects to evoke harmony between figures and landscape. Executed in watercolor and gouache over faint graphite lines on tan laid paper, the work highlights the medium’s growing popularity during this period. These materials allowed Taverner to achieve luminous washes and subt...