John William Waterhouse, R.A. (1849-1917)

The Enchanted Garden was one of the final important contemporary paintings that the first Viscount Leverhulme, the millionaire Liverpudlian soap manufacturer, purchased. At Waterhouse's death in 1917 it was incomplete, but it was exhibited at the Royal Academy later that year nonetheless, illustrating the artist's importance at that time. It was sold by Waterhouse's widow, Esther, to Leverhulme in 1922.

The subject matter is taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, a series of novellas written in the 14th Century, narrated by a group of young Florentines who tell stories to entertain themselves as they hide in isolation away from the Black Plague ravaging their city.

The painting is now on view at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, alongside A Tale from the Decameron (1916), another large Waterhouse showing a group of Florentines in a verdant garden, and other masterpieces from the Leverhulme collection. Our head study is for the central female figure in the painting.

We are grateful to Peter Trippi for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.