The Orange Dress

The model in Arthur Croft Mitchell's 'The Orange Dress' is likely the artist's new wife, Evelyn Violet Ware (known as Molly), who was fourteen years his junior and became his enduring muse. The couple married in 1926 and moved into the Chelsea townhouse that Mitchell had built in 1913 in Mallord Street. That same year both husband and wife painted views at Ragusa, Sicily. Was this clifftop precipice also inspired by Sicily's dramatic coastline?

Mitchell was particularly known for his portraits and psychologically charged interiors, and had great admiration for Vermeer. He was taught at the Slade by Philip Wilson Steer, whose impressionistic style was an influence, and 'The Orange Dress' can be seen to be within the context of Steer and Whistler who both named paintings after the sitter's dress. used the sitter's dress as the painting's name. In doing so the painting is not so much a portrait as a meditation on aesthetics, colour and form. Mitchell's languid Art Deco muse is Venus-like against the ocean vista and bears more than a passing resemblance to Vemeer's turbaned Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Image 2) Arthur Croft Mitchell 3 & 4) Vale End, 32 Mallord Street 5) Interior of a Religious House, Gallery Oldham 6) The Mandolin Player.