A Painting of Japan at Standen, East Grinstead

Posted: April 25th, 2022 | No Comments »

Regular readers will know I am interested in the various foreign artists (largely women) who worked, or at least sojourned, in Nothern China, Korea and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. Examples include Americans Helen Hyde, Lilian May Miller and Bertha Lum (see an essay on her in my collection Destination Peking), along with Scottish artists Elizabeth Keith and Anna Hotchkins. I have written a little more extensively on the Peking-based British artist Katharine Jowett in the South China Morning Post. Though many skecthed and did oil and water colours, most worked in wood and lino cuts as most shared interest in shin-hanga, or  the“new prints” movement in Japanese art.

Anyway, a visit to the National Trust property Standen near East Grinstead, West Sussex. James and Margaret Beale chose this idyllic location with views across the Sussex countryside for their rural retreat in the 1890s. Designed by Philip Webb, the house is one of the finest examples of Arts and Crafts workmanship, with William Morris & Co. interiors. The Beale’s were also, as so many of the Arts and Crafts people were, on Japanese art and objects, as well as Japanoiserie. The house has many works of Japanese art on show, most probably largely collected on a trip the Beale’s made to Japan in 1907. Others probably came from London galleries and the heavily Japanese-influenced Liberty’s department store. There is a very good essay on the subject of Japanese art by the Conservation and Interpretation Assistant intern at Standen in 2015.

But here’s my theory on one interesting work. The house is also full of work by the Margaret LC Beale (not the Magaret Beale who owned the house), a British artist, notable as a painter of seascapes and marine craft, who worked in both oils and watercolours. All of these paintings are labelled ‘Margaret Beale’. But this one is different…

Obviously the image is of Japan, probably Yokohama where the Standen owning Beale’s visited and labelled “Maggie Beale”. However, it is in a distinctly different style to the works by Margaret Beale and, I believe, this one is by the Margaret Beale who owned Standen and labelled “Maggie Beale” to differentiate from Margaret Beale. At least that’s my theory. And it’s quite a nice piece too….

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