Not surprisingly this picture has featured as a book cover for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice! It was also in demand back in 1917 as a card to be included in packets of cigarettes for soldiers at the Front in the First World War. In 1957 it turned up in a Glasgow Herald cartoon on restrictive practices, headed Two Strings to her Wage Claim, above a quote: ''There are employers perhaps, who would like us to have one man looking after half a dozen machines'', while this year one of Gagma's guides spotted it on a lemon-flavoured vodka bottle in Poland!
Born in East Linton, Pettie trained at Edinburgh, then moved to London in 1862 with his painter friend Orchardson to share a house in Pimlico. Both specialised in sentimental frivolous fiction: period costume pictures popular with middle-class patrons. This light-hearted scene is set in an English country lane, and the Regency costumes date from around 1810.
Miss Margaret Thallon, a Pettie family governess, posed for the girl, while the dashing chap with the sword-stick was Hamish MacCunn, the successful composer son of the Greenock shipowner, who later married Pettie's daughter. The other handsome figure was based on Alex Watt, son of a London literary agent. Miss Thallon died in November 1948 aged 84, so she was about 23 when she was painted.
The blue and gold scarf the flirt is wearing arrived at Kelvingrove nine years ago, as a gift from a Mrs Butler of Devon, who apologised for its ''distressed'' appearance, saying she was now handicapped and could not ''fettle it up''.
Her grandfather was Alexander Watt, who modelled for the fair-haired suitor. ''In 1949 after his death, when I was helping my grandmother clear their house, she gave it to me to make a blouse, (clothes were still difficult then due to the war), and told me it was in the picture. The Pettie and Watt families were friends.'' She confirmed the girl was their governess, ''and much too pretty to be one!''
The picture was first exhibited at London's Royal Academy and in Liverpool in 1887. It was presented to Glasgow in 1888 by Sir John Muir, Provost from 1889-92, who purchased it from the lucky winner of the picture in the Glasgow International Exhibition Art Union Raffle Draw.
Generosity has played a large part in building up Glasgow's superb collection of paintings. This is a good example. You can find it in the Green Room on Kelvingrove's top floor.
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