This early work by Harold Knight was painted whilst he was a student at Nottingham Art School. It bears comparison with his portrait of his fellow student and future wife, Laura Johnson, painted in 1891 (Royal Academy of Arts). The unfinished portrait of Lily Poyser showcases Harold’s immense talent (in the eyes of his wife Harold was always the superior artist of the two, despite all her later fame). The portrayal of Lily is so lifelike that she almost leaps from the surface of the canvas.

The present work was likely painted in 1891 or 1892, a year or two before The Lady in Yellow, Laura’s depiction from 1893 of a slightly older Lily Poyser, who, with her three sisters, modelled regularly at the art school, receiving wages of a halfpenny. In her autobiography of 1965, Laura recounted an incident when ‘a sensation came about one life class, when Wilson Foster (the Life Class master) having reached Harold’s profile drawing of a lovely young girl – Lily Poyser – stayed there for a long time without saying a word, eventually to tell that Harold’s study was beyond criticism’. Very likely this profile drawing dates to around the same time as this oil study.

The picture is blindstamped ‘E.S.K.’ the mark of the South Kensington School of Art suggesting Harold submitted it for exhibition there, which was the case with much of his, and Laura’s, student work.

The painting is to be included in the catalogue raisonné of Laura and Harold Knight currently being compiled by R John Croft FCA, the great-nephew of the artist.