Charles Wellington Furse

N01963 The Return from the Ride 1902 
  
Not inscribed. 
Canvas, 85×109 1/4 (216×278). 
Chantrey Purchase from the artist's widow 1905. 

Exh. R.A., 1903 (471); International Exhibition, St Louis, U.S.A., March 1904 (88). 

Lit: B.F.A.C., Memoir, 1908, pp.35, 37, repr. pl.33; Furse, 1940, p.251. 
Repr: Art Journal, 1905, p.143. 

According to Mrs Waterfield (letter of 31 December 1957) the picture was painted in the summer of 1902, though the B.F.A.C. Memoir gives 1903. The background shows the view from Chobham Ridge near the artist's home, Yockley, and his black horse was used for the rider. The sitters were the artist Aubrey Waterfield (1874–1944) and his wife Lina, daughter of Sir Maurice Duff Gordon, Bt., of Fyvie. They were married in 1901 and she is wearing her going-away dress. Lina Waterfield, O.B.E., was the author of a number of books on Italy, including several in the Mediaeval Towns Series, Italian correspondent to the Observer 1921–36, and foreign correspondent to the Kemsley Press 1946–50. The frame was carved by Katharine Furse (née Symonds), who was married to the artist. Katharine, a nursing and military administrator, later led a British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment during the First World War and served as the inaugural Director of the Women's Royal Naval Service.   

Published in: 
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I