The Bloomsbury Family, a photogravure signed by William Orpen c1907-15

ORPEN, William. A Bloomsbury Family. [c.1908-1915].
 
Large photogravure after Orpen's celebrated 1907 painting, signed by William Orpen in pencil beneath the image. Image approximately 260 x 250 mm on a very large sheet measuring approximately 560 x 420 mm, with exceptionally broad margins. The title "The Bloomsbury Family" is written in pencil at the lower right of the sheet in an unidentified hand. Blank verso.
The sheet shows some light surface marking and minor edge wear, and is reinforced to the edges on the reverse but is otherwise well preserved. The image itself is very good, and the pencil signature is clear.
 
A handsome signed proof-like impression after one of Orpen's best-known domestic paintings. The original, A Bloomsbury Family, was painted in 1907 and depicts Orpen's close friends William Nicholson and his wife, the painter Mabel Pryde, with their children Nancy, Tony, Ben and Christopher. Orpen himself is reflected in the convex mirror above the fireplace. William and Mabel Nicholson were among William and Grace Orpen's closest friends during this period, and Nicholson and Orpen shared studio space. The children represented here would themselves become notable figures, most significantly Ben Nicholson, later one of the leading British modernist painters, and Nancy Nicholson, painter and textile designer.
 
The original painting is now in the National Galleries of Scotland. Reproductions of the composition were already being issued by 1908, but the present example is of an altogether different character from the smaller contemporary publication reproductions: a large impression on a substantial sheet with very wide margins and bearing Orpen's autograph pencil signature.