What a difference 98 years makes. It is Knightsbridge, but not as we know it. This 1924 watercolour on paper by Rose Barton shows Lancelot Place, Knightsbridge, in 1924. It comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online auction of Important Irish Art which runs until June 20. In The Dairy at Lancelot Place Barton, who lived nearby, depicts a woman carrying a jug of milk and holding a child by the hand. In a catalogue note Peter Murray writes: “Although preserving much of the rural character of eighteenth-century London, Lancelot Place was by then just a stone’s throw from the new Harrods department store. Today, the street is lined with modern apartment buildings, making Barton’s watercolour an all the more valuable record of London’s past”. Barton first showed at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1878, and in London two years later, at the Dudley Gallery. Over the following decade she had successful exhibitions in both London and Dublin. Elected an associate member of the Society Women Artists by 1886, seven years later she became an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour, (RWS) and a full member in 1911. This work is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
