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Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941) CUR

Currency:EUR Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:20,000.00 - 30,000.00 EUR
Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941) CUR
Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941) CURIOSITY signed and dated [1903] lower left; artist’s label on reverse watercolour heightened with white on paper backed by board 65 by 47cm., 25.75 by 18.75in. Exhibited: Royal Watercolour Society, London, 1905; Rodman Gallery, Belfast, 1909 In both title and subject this work relates to A Preliminary Investigation (National Gallery of Ireland), which was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1899 and depicts a flock of doves alighting by an open sack of grain. Butler frequently gave anthropomorphic and sometimes witty titles to her paintings of birds. Other examples include The Sentinels (RI, 1895) A Problem (OWS, 1899 and WCSI, 1902), Busybodies (WCSI, 1905) and her well known watercolour of three crows startled by a kite flying overhead, titled with a quote from Macauley: And straight against that array went forth the valiant three (RA, 1893).