Lot 73
LAURA ADELINE MUNTZ LYALL, O.S.A., A.R.C.A.
Additional Images
Provenance:
Matthews Art Gallery, Toronto
Literature:
Joan Murray, “Laura Muntz Lyall: Impressions of Women and Childhood”, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2012, page 32, colour plate 64 for a similar portrait entitled The Lullaby, 1915, and colour plate 69 for a similar portrait entitled Lullaby, 1924.
Note:
Of Laura Muntz’s portraiture Joan Murray wrote: “She always presented the subject in a flattering yet honest way and with an effect of refined vivacity, most often highlighting the face and body against a dark, broadly painted neutral background and adding a few notes of colour, usually to the sitter’s eyes and lips, and sometimes to the costume.”
In Untitled - Lullaby, a cool indigo costume frames the warm embrace shared by a mother and her little girl. Their tenderness is palpable. They sit together out-of-doors, barefoot, as if characters in a whimsical fairytale. The mother’s expression is wistful, as she drapes her arms lovingly around the slumbering girl.