English Victorian Lady with Flower Portrait

American Victorian ebonized framed oil portrait, painting of 19th Century lady in blue and red dress.

Ebonized framed oil painting portrait of young boy holding book

A large and beautiful three quarter length portrait of a partly seated lady her hat over one arm holding a bouquet of flowers, the other arm held upward holding a branch of a tree. This original oil on canvas by the British artist Laurence Koe, (1863-1913), is signed on the lower right and dated 1905. Lawrence E. Koe was a portrait painter and sculptor. He is listed as living in Brighton when he first exhibited at The Royal Academy in 1891, but by 1894 he had moved to London where he appears to have settled for the remainder of his life. Koe exhibited widely; over twenty times at The Royal Academy, but also at the R.O.I, The Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Most of his exhibited works were portraits, and among his sitters were the wives of fellow artists Harold Speed RP (1872-1957) and Harold Piffard (fl. 1895-1899). In 1896 Koe exhibited “Venus and Tännhauser” at the Royal Academy, now in the permanent collection in the Brighton Museum and Art and he showed a painting of Sappho two years later. He clearly shows the influence of other artists working at the same time, notably Singer Sargent, Arthur Hacker RA (1858-1919) and Herbert James Draper...

The hand-written notes on the back of this miniature watercolor tell what was, at the time, a scandalous story. The portrait is of Hanah Tichbon. The inscription reads in part, "wen...