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Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by Mr and Mrs Wilfrid Giardelli in the late 1950s and thence by descent to the present owner

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Exhibited: Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Selective Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Ceri Richards, 7th - 31st March 1964;
Cardiff, National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Ceri Richards Memorial Exhibition, 16th June - 8th July 1973, cat. no.14, with tour to National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, and Royal Cambrian Academy, Conway;
London, The Tate Gallery, Ceri Richards, 22nd July - 6th September 1981, cat. no.47, illustrated in the catalogue p.43.

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Literature: Mel Gooding, Ceri Richards, Cameron & Hollis, Moffat, 2002, illustrated p.94.

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Notes: 'As in love, all depends on what the artist unconsciously projects on to everything he sees. It is the quality of the projection, rather than the presence of the living person, that gives an artist's vision its life.' (Matisse, quoted in Mel Gooding, Ceri Richards, Moffat, 2002, p.92).

In 1945 Ceri Richards and his wife Frances moved to a large Victorian house on Wandsworth Common West Side, at which time Richards taught at Chelsea and Frances began to lecture in illustration at Camberwell College. This was a time of great domestic stability which Richards' work from this time beautifully reflects. The present work depicts their first daughter Rhiannon drawing whilst her mother stands behind her, seemingly lost in thought, as she rests a gentle protective hand on her daughter's long flowing hair. There is no action or sound in the room. The piano is untouched.

Unusually Richards made a number of sketches for the present painting, signed and dated January 1 and January 2 1949, which convey a rare desire to inform his work with distinct observations of his family's intimate space, his daughter concentrating on her task and his wife lost in daydream. In his monograph on the artist Mel Gooding quotes Gaston Bachelard's writings on 'the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house' in relation to this painting. 'The house thrusts aside contingencies, its councils of continuity are unceasing. Without it, man would be a dispersed being. It maintains him through the storms of the heavens and those of life... Asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say, the house allows one to dream in peace... The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity to its depths.' (Mel Gooding, Ceri Richards, Cameron & Hollis, Moffat, 2002, pp. 93-94)

In the background hanging behind the piano, Richards has included his 1948 painting The Rape of the Sabines. The story behind this series which so pre-occupied Richards in the aftermath of the war is the abduction of the unmarried women of the Sabine tribe by the young men of Rome so that the newly founded city could be populated. The theme is passionate and violent and in stark contrast to this scene of domestic harmony. It is a reminder of the recent war in which Richards was employed on anti-aircraft and fire-watching duties in Cardiff and the longevity of the memory of its destructive power. And yet the peace of the domestic scene is not ruptured by the inclusion of the Sabine painting. They have a clear visual relationship. The vital curve of Frances' body from leaning elbow on mantelpiece to calf stealing out from her skirt as she reaches over to her daughter so tenderly finds its reflection in the bending, arching and reaching of the Sabine figures. The 'modern' depiction of the classical subject is in harmony with the primary family scene.

Richards' visual inspiration for the Sabine story represents his looking to the Old Masters and in this circumstance particularly Rubens' The Rape of the Sabine Women, 1635 (National Gallery, London). But Richards was no slave to the past. The greatest stylistic influence for the present painting is clearly that of Matisse. In December 1945 Richards saw the Exhibition of Paintings by Picasso and Matisse at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In March the following year he read Matisse's essay 'Observations on Painting' in which the artist discussed Cezanne's practice of drawing from the Old Masters. Matisse advises, 'The young painter who cannot free himself from the influence of the preceding generation is headed for disaster. In order to protect himself against the spell of the creations of those of his immediate predecessors whom he admires, he can seek out kindred spirits and find new sources of inspiration in the productions of a variety of other civilisations'. (Ibid. p.81).