Janen, I used to collect framed cottage prints found at thrift stores and antique shops. Very inexpensive reproductions of course, and I never paid attention to the artists; but now I will. I'll have to go out to the garage and check today as sadly, that's where pictures end up when I don't have a place to hang them. You've awakened my passion for these lovely works of art. Now if I can just "curb my enthusiasm" and not start buying again! Thank you.
My favorite of the above three is "The Clothesbasket".

schoolhouse do you have pictures of some of your favorites? I would love to see some of the ones you really like. Wish I could make my garden look like some in the paintings. Guess it helps to have a thatched cottage!!!

Well, if I ever get that digital camera. How embarrassed was I when I went out to the garage and saw one framed print covered in cobwebs where it had fallen behind an old headboard of a bed. Sheesh. No signature on it, a 25" X 20" print on cheap cardboard,in a white frame (I didn't frame it); it is of a cottage with a wall around the front (courtyard?)with two maidens (one with a stick or branch in her hand) with a gaggle of geese at their feet. Behind and to their right there is a creek with another large number of geese coming down the creek bank and crossing the water.

I know I have at least two more somewhere packed away out there, so since you have me curious now I will try to find them later. Oh, wouldn't a thatched cottage be divine?

Your watercolor is indeed by Helen Allingham, and is located in Haslemere, Surrey, England.

TomNJ
The Helen Allingham Society
www.helenallingham.com

Lovely all!

I have a cousin from Dublin, Ire. and she gardens there. I have never seen her gardens, mind you, but she talks about them all the time. I will see if she can send me some photos to share.

I found a book on cottage gardens that I wanted in England, but it was too pricey for my wallet, plus shipping made it even mores the pity.

Annie

How great to solve the mystery of who painted the Cottage Gardens art piece! There was a discussion about this last year, but I don't remember what was said, or if we ever knew the artist.

I have a little print of a painting by Hans Anderson Brendekilde (1857- 1942) "Coming Out to Play" of a thatched cottage with three little girls out front and peonies and perennial phlox blooming by the doorsteps with something that looks like white Sweet William in front. I found a little something about the Danish artist online.

Nell

Those are beautiful! My yard will never look like that, but one can always dream and enjoy the gardens in art. Hey, I just remembered I have a book on the history of gardens and garden in art. I meant to read that this winter, but have been too busy blogging. You made me want to find it and read it.

Sue

I've got two little framed pictures can't make out the artists name on them but one is called Thatch and Flowers, the other In Rural England. I bought mine for 50 cents at a garage sale.

Annette

Hi Tom, thank you for letting us know the artist is indeed Helen Allingham, as we did not know for sure in our past discussion. Beautiful! :) Becky

After seeing Helen Allingham paintings of cottages and their gardens in the galleries on your web site, I have never been more inspired.

'There was a discussion about this last year, but I don't remember what was said, or if we ever knew the artist.' Here is the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Helen Allingham dicussion

With my yard looked like that when I take out the washing, it's gorgeous!

Here it is!
And it look's lighter.

Here is a link that might be useful: our picture

Definitely brighter. What type of hedge is that do you think?

I don't know about the hedge but sunflowers and foxgloves?
I bit of artistic licence there. Still very pretty.

Libby

The hedge could be Lonicera nitida which gets that bulgy shape as it ages. It could also be box. As for the foxgloves, they could be out in our climate at the same time as sunflowers but they appear to be rather tall. Perhaps they're hollyhocks. That would make the height right. The 'creeper' I would guess is a grape vine. The white flowers on the left look like Anemone japonica and the pale yellow look like dahlias. If that is the case HA has merged August and September a bit.I do not see any 'marigolds'. Tagetes would be unlikely plants in this kind of garden as they are tender annulas which need starting under glass in our climate and would be too expensive and difficult for a cottage gardener. If anyone can find a larger, clearer picture I would be happy to revise my ideas.

I might have to guess hollyhocks instead of foxglove, too, flora. And the pale yellow below the window? A rose?

Very cool picture(s). Looking at "our" picture in its highest resolution, the tall plants in question look an awful lot like hollyhocks to me too.

ThinMan

I agree with schoolhouse & thinman - definitely look like hollyhocks to me, and makes more sense. Seeing these beautiful old gardens convinces me that I have to re-think my garden. I've tried hollyhocks before and love the way they look at first, but then they start to get ratty looking for me. Please tell me how to care for them. They seem to be in all of these old Victorian gardens and they just give the garden the perfect look.

I've had another look, having worked out how to blow up the picture. I am now pretty sure those are double hollyhocks. The pale yellow flowers under the window look to me like a single dahlia rather than a rose. Sideways on they look too flat for roses. I think I must issue a 'health warning' about these pictures though. HA definitely did idealise these gardens. They would have looked pretty ratty a lot of the time. Remember too that there was a plentiful supply of manure around, including the contents of the privy at the end of the garden. The charming cottages would probably have been cold, damp, leaky and full of people.

Yes, and the ones with thatched roofs are even more charming - and probably invited a lot of unwanted guests (mice, birds, bugs, snakes, etc.). They LOOK fabulous though! My ranch style house is just not getting it. Maybe I could throw some grass seed up on the roof!!!

No question Mrs. Allingham idealized her cottage scenes, adding flowers, hedges, children, and various animals from her imagination and sketch book. The urban folks in London wanted to keep this sunny and happy image from their childhood rather than the cold damp rooms, poverty, disease, and odors of the real rural England.

The cottages themselves, however, were painted with great detail and accurate perspective - so much so that her paintings are studied by modern architects for insight into old building styles and structure. She would sometimes add back lattice to windows and thatch to roofs on cottages that were modernized, but only to restore them to their original charm and beauty.

All artists take some license, and the end result is what matters. In the case of Helen Allingham, her warm and sympathetic images capture a happy and peaceful feeling from a simpler life, without the interference of excessive reality.

TomNJ
www.helenallingham.com

"Maybe I could throw some grass seed up on the roof!!!" LOL.

I have hollyhocks that do perfectly well,if not better, left alone and not fussed with; others that get the yellow leaves,ect. I think it's just the nature of the hollyhock. HA idealized the gardens? Of course, but many garden magazines do that also. But then I bet we all experience at least one week when our flower gardens look great, it's what we live for! That one week.

When I was growing up, we lived in England for about 3 years. We lived in a tiny little village named Winwick, in Northampton shire. About 100 people lived in this village.

Across the road from us was a little cottage with a thatched roof. It looked remarkably like the second picture you show. A lady named Mrs. Farrell lived there, and I have to this day, a lovely water pitcher that she gave to my mother.

I would love to go back to see how it looks now.

Janie

What an interesting discussion! As for the idealization on her paintings, one should bear in mind this was a common trait in art for those late Victorians such as herself. An interesting paralelism can be drawn with the novelist Thomas Hardy work. Hardy was HA's contemporary and also a man looking nostalgically at a rural past that was fast disappearing. If you look at the cronology, some of his most beloved works, such as Far From The Madding Crowd (1874) are in sync with HA works on watercolors, as depicted in her website that TomNJ has so kindly provided. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) also depicts that nostalgic view of peasants and the simple pace of rural life, in an England that was mostly being run over with industrialization.

It's an irony of History that at the same time that the British Raj ruled half the world and was more powerful than ever, a significant part of its artists was looking back to the past and longing for a lifestyle more in keeping with Nature's rythms. I strongly suspect this only proves that artists at the time came from a reasonably wealthy social background, as none of the poor peasants depicted in their works would look back to the past as something they looked forward to... Houses had really awful living conditions, and people were quite often on the verge of starvation. If you travel in Scotland and Ireland these days you will find appalling memories of these times, remarkably the memorials to the Great Potato Famine in Ireland, which reduced its population by about 25% and was a major cause for the Irish diaspora, and the Scottish Clearances, which pushed the poor peasant population to the coastal villages to make way for sheep owned by big landowners (which in turn would feed the wool manufactures in the Scottish borders) and finally pushed Scots around the world as well, so as to avoid starvation.

So yes, her paintings are beautiful romantic idealizations of a world we would like to preserve and make real. As someone pointed out, it's a good thing the paintings don't replicate the smell it would probably accompany the houses we now sigh for :-) Searching and longing for beauty, is it not what most of us do all the time?

Eduarda

"An interesting parallelism can be drawn with the novelist Thomas Hardy work. Hardy was HA's contemporary..."

Interestingly, Helen Allingham (then Helen Paterson) illustrated Hardy's book "Far From the Madding Crowd". Hardy dined with Helen in May of 1874 and was totally smitten by her. Unfortunately for Mr. Hardy, Helen was seeing the Irish poet William Allingham at the time, and married him in August 1874. Years later Hardy wrote a poem entitled "The Opportunity (for HP)" musing on what might have been had he won over the young artist.

For those looking for more reading and pictures of British Victorian cottages and gardens I recommend the following books:

"The Cottage Homes of England" by Stewart Dick and Helen Allingham.

"Victorian Flower Gardens" by Andrew Clayton-Payne.

"The Cottages of Britain" by Philippa Drury.

"Painted Gardens" by Penelope Hobhouse and Christopher Wood.

"Lark Rise to Candleford" by Flora Thompson.

"Rural Life" by Adrian Vincent.

There were scores of artists painting the rural English countryside in Victorian times, but for charming cottages and cottage gardens, Helen Allingham is the undisputed Queen.

TomNJ

Oh, I had no idea about this! I only drew the paralelism because I noticed the chronology and their views in life were similar! Considering Hardy had an unfortunate marriage himself, one can only wonder what their respective works would have been if a romantic attachment between the two had succeded. I didn't know she had illustrated Far From the Madding Crowd either. My well worn copy of the book is a modest paperback edition from Penguin which doesn't have any illustration at all. Thank you for this piece of lovely trivia, TomNJ!

Eduarda (a devoted Hardy fan)

' ... and probably invited a lot of unwanted guests (mice, birds, bugs, snakes, etc.).' Yes, all of those except snakes. We only have three British snakes and only one venemous. None of them would be caught anywhere near a human habitation if they could help it. Now rats .... they would almost certainly be around. Interesting discussion. All the cottage gardens we like are really just reinterpretations of an idealised garden - but none the worse for that. Another source of ideas is the work of Beatrix Potter. (Similar era) I remember seeing the 'Tale of the pie and the Patty Pan' as a child and loving the accurate portrayal of the garden plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:632808}}

In that "Pie and the patty pan" pic, those DO look like foxglove.

Kate Greenaway was another important influence on our vision of what a cottage garden looks like. The charming gardens and flowers and children she painted were for her beautifully illustrated children's books of the same era and cultural climate as Helen Allingham.

In fact, Kate Greenaway was a very good friend of Helen Allingham and they often went out together on painting expeditions in the country.

TomNJ

That's interesting, Tom. Is there a book you'd recommend about that group of artistic/literary figures?

We think the name of the artist on my print 'In Rural England' is Sylvester maybe S. Knight. Does anyone recognize this name or something similar? The other print 'Thatch and Flowers' we can't make out the name possibly the same artist.

Annette

Hi Ginny,

There are literally hundreds of books covering Victorian art and artists, and more specifically rural life in England. The books I listed above cover multiple artists (except for "The Cottage Homes of England" which is only Helen Allingham") and focus on cottages and gardens.

In addition, Annabel Watts has a beautiful booklet titled "An Artist's Surrey Eden" which devotes a page to each of some 21 rural watercolor artists painting in 19th century Surrey. You can buy this directly from Annabel at: http://www.helenallingham.com/BooksPrints.htm

For a broader view there is Christopher Wood's book "Paradise Lost" which is devoted to paintings of English country life and landscapes from 1850 to 1914. Mr. Wood also wrote "Victorian Painting" which gives an even broader view of the art of the period, but little specific to country life.

Which book is best for you depends on your particular interests, e.g. cottages, gardens, landscapes, country life, etc. A search of your key words of interest on Amazon will turn up many more books, and they usually give a good synopsis as well.

Hope this helps!

TomNJ

Hi Annette,

The father/daughter artists Henry J Sylvester Stannard (1870-1951) and Theresa Sylvester Stannard (1898-1947) were quite popular for cottage and cottage garden watercolors.

TomNJ

Thanks for the information Tom, Below are my two little pictures, not bad for 50 cents.

Annette

Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Annette,

They are very nice. Both are by the father, Henry J Sylvester Stannard. Some more examples of his works can be seen here:

http://www.baronfineart.com/Gallery/henry_j_sylvester_stannard.htm

TomNJ

All of the books you recommend are great Tom. I especially like the one "Victorian Flower Gardens" by Clayton-Payne because it contains so many gardens and many different artists. A.R. Quinton is another artist for rural England that I like. There is a nice book "A.R. QuintonÂs England" by Alan Jenkins that has over a hundred of his paintings. And I agree with you - Helen IS the queen.
Jane

schoolhouse - I think if you look again you'll see they are antirrhinums, snapdragons.

I don't grow foxgloves, so I'm not that familiar; thanks, flora.