George Frederic Watts, O.M., R.A. (1817-1904)

This is a small and apparently unrecorded version of a painting of 1889 listed in Mrs Watts's manuscript catalgoue as belonging to Sir Charles Tennant. She also notes that the figure was 'first designed' for the frescoes in Carlton House Terrace that Watts executed for Lord Somers in the mid-1850s, and that the Tennant painting was begun in Malta during their honeymoon in 1887, 'the seas there suggesting the subject'.