The early work of Raphael . ll have to journey downinto Wiltshire, and find him on the banks of the Kennet just as thedry fly settles provokingly over the nose of a three-pound trout. In fact, Orchardson has always set his art against a background ofsport. When he first came to England, it was for the saddle thathe used to lay down the palette. A feather weight, with the lightestof hands and an excellent judgment, he used for years to follow thefortunes of the Chiddingfold Hounds, in Surrey, a yeoman pack, huntedby four brothers called Sadler. On his marriage he gave up hunting, and took to a
The early work of Raphael . ll have to journey downinto Wiltshire, and find him on the banks of the Kennet just as thedry fly settles provokingly over the nose of a three-pound trout. In fact, Orchardson has always set his art against a background ofsport. When he first came to England, it was for the saddle thathe used to lay down the palette. A feather weight, with the lightestof hands and an excellent judgment, he used for years to follow thefortunes of the Chiddingfold Hounds, in Surrey, a yeoman pack, huntedby four brothers called Sadler. On his marriage he gave up hunting, and took to a sport to whichhe had been casually introduced years before at Brighton. Pettie andhe strolled one day into the tennis-court behind the Bedford Hotel,took up a pair of rackets, and set themselves to solve the mysteries of theking of games. The fancy here conceived was nourished in St. JohnsWood, when Orchardson became a member of the , and frequentedthe tennis-court with some regularity. It was not until 1877, however,. Portrait of the Painter, by the picture in the Uffizi Gallery. THE ART OF WILLIAM aUILLER ORCHARDSON 21 that he became a devotee to the game. In that year he finished buildingthe house at Westgate in which he spent much of his time until twoor three years ago. In the garden he built an open tennis-court, thefirst, I believe, which had been constructed since the sixteenth century,when most of the French courts, at least, were roofless. Here, thanksto the dry climate of the east neuk of Kent, he lost and won chasesagainst nearly all the heroes of the game for a matter of fifteen years,with few disappointments from the weather. I have spent whole summerdays in this court, and a more delicious setting for a delightful gameit would be hard to conceive. Overhead a sky like Italy, within thewalls an atmosphere like dry champagne, behind the gallery nets roseshanging in bunches from the pillars on which the service wall was carried,and nothing to awake
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookde, booksubjectraphael14831520, bookyear1895
