After the Bath by Paul Peel

After the Bath, by Paul Peel was painted in 1890 as an oil on canvas. Its a big work 147x110 cm and belongs to the Government of Ontario.

I first saw this work, while on tour of Parkwoods, the home of RS McLaughlin, the Canadian founder of General Motors in Oshawa, On. I remember it for I was walking down the great staircase and it was hanging on the wall before me.

That would have been before 1972 when it was gifted to the Ontario Government.
The size and power and richness and colour of the work, stopped me in my tracks.
R.S. McLaughlin died that year, so it seems evident that it was bequethed to the government.

Wikepdidia writes that it won a broze medal at the Paris Salon in 1892.

Peel was known for his often sentimental nudes and for his pictures of children; he was among the first Canadian painters to explore the nude as a subject.

The Canadian Art History online archive reports that Paul had two little children, a boy and a girl and that they both posed nude for him and were subjects in several of his works.

While I don't know the journey of this work and how it came to be in the McLaughlin family, the family did have strong connections with the art community. The Art Gallery of Oshawa website, reports that Ewart McLaughlin and his wife Alexandra Luke made donations of work to the Oshawa art gallery, and that Sam McLaughlin's grand daughter, Isabela was a significant artist and a contributor to the gallery and to the arts.

There are far too many holes in this brief internet search for information on this work and I invite readers to contribute to this story.

There is an item on the allexperts website, that reports that the Slack Family of Eastern Ontario came into possession of a work called, "After the Bath" and that they were seeking information on their work. Were the several paintings done on the same theme by Peel?

A copy of the work went on the Christie's auction block in London England on March 18,2008 where it sold for $7.545.

wikipedia link. please click here.

Art history archive. Please click here.

Oshawa Art Gallery. please click here.

Christie's auction information.

Paul Peel so Great an Artist in so Few Years of Life

Canadian painter Paul Peel (Born November 7th 1860 in London/Ontario – Died October 3rd 1892 in Paris/France) was the son of a marble-cutter and drawing teacher (John Robert Peel). He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philidelphia (1877-1880 under Thomas Eakins); the R.A. Schools, London ,under William Lees Judson,(1880); and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1881) under Gerome and others.

He returned to London, Ontario, and Toronto for a short time about 1890, but was chiefly active in Paris. He travelled widely in Canada and in Europe, exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. He later returned to Paris where he died in October 1892. Before his death he had achieved a considerable success for his technique in such academic subjects as 'After the Bath' (1890).

His sentimental studies of children, such as The Modest Model (1889) and After the Bath (1890), followed the carefully modelled prescription of the Académie. After the Bath won Peel a medal at the 1890 Salon and displays his skill using light and colour.

He was one of the first Canadian painters to portray nude figures, as in his A Venetian Bather (1889). At the time of his death Peel appeared to be changing his style toward Impressionism. However, he did not live to develop his art beyond its academic sentimentalism. His lung infection was likely induced by overwork and exhaustion. A major retrospective of his work was held in London, Ontario in 1987.

He had two children, a son and then a daughter, who were his models in some of his art.

Many of his works now hang in the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Source: This page was extracted from Art History Archived. com. Please click here.

Note: name, William Lee Judson from the research of Mo Bayliss.


Addend: Answers.Com adds this information to his life story

(b London, Ont., 7 Nov 1860; d Paris, 3 Oct 1892). Canadian painter, active also in France. He was born of English parents who had settled in Canada in the early 1850s, and his early artistic ambitions were encouraged by his father, a stone-carver and drawing instructor. From 1877 to 1880 he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, learning particularly from the progressive Thomas Eakins. He was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1880, and later that year he left for Europe, possibly stopping in London on his way to France. He spent the first part of 1881 in Pont-Aven in Brittany, where he produced the religious work Devotion (1881; Ottawa, N.G.).

Please click here to be taken to the Answers.com, website.