THE WATER NYMPHS
signed and dated G.P. JACOMB HOOD / 1909 lower left
oil on canvas
91.5 x 72.4cm; 36 x 28½in
116 x 94cm; 45 3/4 x 37in (framed)

Property from a Private Collection, Cumbria

Provenance
Sale, Christie's, London, 3 June 1988, lot 98 (purchased by the present owner)

Jacomb-Hood was one of many artists who had a studio in Manresa Road, Chelsea at the end of the nineteenth century. He counted himself as being 'one of a little colony which included J.J. Shanon, Henri La Thangue, Harvard Thomas, William Llewellyn, Frank Short, Frank Brangwyn and Fred Pomery.' A founding member of the Chelsea Arts Club in the autumn of 1890, he described its initial premises on the Kings Road: 'The ground floor and basement of a house next-door to the Town Hall, and the studio at the back of it in the tenancy of a jovial and talented Scots painter, 'Jimmie' Christie, were rented... The studio formed a mess room for meals, and the room upstairs was for newspapers, chess and general socialbility.' (Caroline Dakers, The Holland Park Circle, Artists and Victorian Society, London, 1999, p. 225).

Born in Surrey, Jacomb-Hood studied at the Slade and then under Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921) in Paris. His preferred subject matter was mythological scenes such as the present example, and he also earnt his living as an accomplished portrait painter. A founder member of the New English Art Club, Jacomb-Hood also supplied illustrations for the Illustrated London News and The Graphic. He exhibited his work widely: in London at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Fine Art Society, the Ridley Art Society and the Grosvenor Gallery. Elswhere across the country he showed at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Hibernian Society, Dublin. He also exhibited regularly at the annual Paris Salon. His work is in museums and public galleries across the UK.