For most of 2020 there’s been a danger in touching, there have been all sorts of face coverings, a feeling of ailment is in the air, a loss of energy and now a changing of seasons bringing new dangers. When I saw this painting again in 2020, it seemed to offer a different context than before. It’s an artwork that has been through its own devastating challenges too. Let’s have a long stare at Val Prinsep’s At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away (1897):

oil on canvas c. 1897,
H 189 x W 136 cm
Valentine Cameron Prinsep

A closer look

The two seasons are represented by two women. Winter does not look at summer but gazes into space as she reaches out to touch summer with her icy finger. Some read this image as the same woman remembering herself as a younger season. We could see this in a new light in the context of Covid times and pre-Covid times. We can look back wistfully to a time before it was thought of as dangerous to meet, touch, hug, talk to each other. We were dancing around with our scattered petals, oblivious to our breath and of what was to come.

Where to find At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away (1897)

You can normally see the painting in the collection at Gallery Oldham in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Sadly, it was severely damaged by water from the flood of 2018 and is under the care of conservators skillfully repairing the damage. See the fantastic work below:

Find out more at https://galleryoldham.org.uk/conservation-of-art-collection-after-flood-at-gallery-oldham/

The gallery is due to have a selection of works ready to go on a new permanent display gallery in 2021. You can also find more works by Prinsep in the Manchester Art Gallery collection.

The Artist

  • Valentine ‘Val’ Prinsep was born on Valentine’s Day in Kolkata, India in 1838.
  • his father Henry was a civil servant of the British Raj, his mother Sara Pattle, one of six sisters to celebrated early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. She is also the great aunt of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.
  • As a child, Val lived at Little Holland House in Kensington 1851-1871 with his bohemian family. George Frederic Watts (1817 – 1904) was a close family friend who stayed with them and taught Val painting skills. Other family friends included Tennyson, Thackeray, Leighton, Rossetti and Ellen Terry. The artists in this neighbourhood became known as the Holland Park Circle.
  • he trained for a while in Paris in 1859 too at the atelier of Charles Gleyre, the most prestigious atelier of its time.
  • his time in Paris is thought to have inspired the character of Taffy in Trilby by George du Maurier which is set in the same period at the same atelier.
  • he also travelled to Italy and India.
  • Val was a member of the Royal Academy and the Pre-Raphaleite Brotherhood and close friends with Millais and Burne-Jones.

Follow in the footsteps of Val Prinsep

London

  • Although the family home at Little Holland House is long gone, Val also lived nearby as an adult at 14 Holland Park Rd in a purpose-built studio house (designed by Philip Webb in 1864-66)- now converted into private apartments since 1948. It’s next door to Leighton House. Leighton House is well worth a visit and will give you a feel for how Prinsep would have lived and worked. A walk around this neighbourhood sometimes feels like time travel in the footsteps of the Holland Park Circle.
Val Prinsep at 14 Holland Park Road
from the first issue of Artists At Home (March 1884),
photo by Frank Dudman

Oxford

  • Oxford Union Library contains the Pre-Raphaelite group mural of 1857, one of which is by Val Prinsep (look for bay 10).

Liverpool

  • He married Florence Leyland at Wooltton Hall, Liverpool in 1884. She was the daughter of ship owner and major art collector Frederick Richards Leyland. This is now a listed abandoned building in disrepair – see some recent photos here
  • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

You can find other works by Val Prinsep at:

Before you visit: please check with individual galleries to find out if Val Prinsep artworks are on display.

oil on canvas c. 1897,
H 189 x W 136 cm
Valentine Cameron Prinsep