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Marguerite

Artist: Johnstone, Dorothy, ARSA · 1892-1980

Marguerite

This portrait of the artist's younger sister Rona aged about 9 was painted in John Duncan's studio at Torphichen Street. Dorothy often used Rona as a…

This portrait of the artist's younger sister Rona aged about 9 was painted in John Duncan's studio at Torphichen Street. Dorothy often used Rona as a model and there are a number of studies of her when she was training to be a dancer. Rona in conversation with the collections assistant in 2003 recalled that Dorothy did make some preliminary pencil sketches but on the whole had a tendency to work straight on to canvas directly from the model.

The work was painted in the studio of John Duncan RSA at Torphichen Street, Edinburgh, in 1912.

The painting was included in the RSA Annual Exhibition in 1913, which marked Johnstone's debut as an exhibitor as the Edinburgh Evening News reported in its issue of 1913-06-07;
"A Student's Debut - Great promise is shown in the painting by Miss Dorothy Johnstone, a daughter of the late Mr G W Johnstone RSA, who has been a student in the College of Art, and makes her debut as an exhibitor. It is a portrait of a young girl in a white dress lying on a couch with her arms stretched above her head in an attitude of delightful abandon. That so young a painter should so successfully have tackled a very difficult piece of drawing and modelling is highly creditable, and the introduction of the marguerite, which gives the title to the picture, combines the decorative so happily that it does not detract from the beautiful simplicity and symmetry of the general design."

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