Edwin Long, RA, 
British 1829-1891- 
Spanish Pottery Painters; 
oil on canvas, signed and dated 'E...

Edwin Long, RA, 
British 1829-1891- 

Spanish Pottery Painters; 

oil on canvas, signed and dated 'E LONG 1872' (centre left), bears label for the Boydell Galleries, Liverpool, attached to the stretcher, 96.5 x 132.5 cm. 

Provenance: 
Private Collection, UK. 

Note: 
Edwin Longsden Long began his long and prolific artistic career as a portrait painter, but became famous for his large-scale depictions of Biblical and historical subjects, as well as his Orientalist scenes, and his romanticised depictions of daily life in Spain. 
Long first travelled to Spain with his teacher, the Scottish painter John Phillip (1817-1867), where he became acquainted with the work of Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682). Both Sevillean masters would have a profound influence on Long's work. The composition presented here, for example, which shows women engaged in manual labour, clustered together around their tasks in a way that suggests both conviviality and concentration, strongly recalls Diego Velazquez's 'Las Hilanderas', which Long is known to have admired, and which the artist even copied on one of his many visits to Spain. Long's version of Velazquez's painting is held in the collection of the Royal Academy [inv. no. 03/822]. 

Long appears to have returned to the subject of the Spanish pottery several times, and in addition to the picture presented here, two other versions of this composition are known. A smaller, unfinished oil sketch appeared at Chiswick Auctions on the 5th February 2019, lot 84. Another version, also dated 1872, and slightly larger than the present picture, was recorded in the collection of The Leicester Galleries, London. That example is likely the version of the subject which sold at Christie's on 13 June 1903, lot 133, and also probably the picture referenced in M. Bills, Edwin Longsden Long RA, 1998, p. 100, no. 24. The present, smaller-scale version, closely relates to the painting mentioned by Bills, though Long does appear to have made some small changes while working on this composition. In the background of the present lot, for instance, there are more women seated around the workshop table, whereas in the other version a woman stands in the arched doorway, balancing a jar upon her head. 
It was not uncommon for Long to revisit his own compositions, perhaps to meet the great demand for his works among his Victorian audience. The artist's reduced-scale 'replica' of his famous Babylonian scene 'Thisbe' was sold at Christie's, 15 Jul 2021, lot 51 (£52,500).