The Yellow Sofa

Provenance

With Dicksee and Co., London, 1912.

Description / Expertise

Major John Mansfield Crealock was educated at Sandhurst and served in the Boer War as a Lieutenant in the Imperial Yeomanry before travelling to Paris to study at the Académie Julian from 1901-4. Crealock’s method of entitling his portraits of elegant women in luxurious interiors according to their colour arrangement as opposed to the names of the sitters was practised by Whistler in the second half of the 19th century. This painting, The Yellow Sofa, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1912 (no. 98) along with The Red Sofa (no. 92). In 1920 he exhibited The Purple Sofa at the R.A.



Crealock was elected member of the Royal Portrait Society in 1917/18, having exhibited there since 1908.