Works of Elizabeth Murray
She was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and was one of the founders of The Society of Female Artists in London in 1857.
She continued to travel and live across the world, and paint scenes and portraits from these places: in particular, Rome, Morocco, the Canary Islands (particularly Tenerife), and New England.
She married Henry John Murray, a British consul whom she met when living in Morocco, and moved with him as he was assigned to the Canary Islands.
José Luis García Pérez has pointed out that it is difficult to know the exact dates Murray's paintings were created, and that because of her travels it is likely she sketched the initial drawings and then took more time to finish them.
Murray created around 85 pieces that can be divided into three groups: portraits, which were the highlights of her artwork; general scenes; and landscapes.
[1] Murray also published a monograph, Sixteen Years of an Artist's Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands about her travels, in 1859.
[5] The painting is composed of a vertical axis in the centre, in this case created by the woman; on both sides, following the typical parallelism in Murray's works, are the man and child.
The main character in the scene is a tall man with curly black hair and expressive eyes[1] who is extending his arm with a hat, to symbolise that he is asking for alms.
To the beggar's right is another group of people who are very different from the family: an old woman holding a rosary and looking compassionately at a half-naked man, and behind her a heavily-adorned Romani girl, whose depiction shows the Victorian delicacy with which Murray painted small details.
[5] The watercolour was translated into a wood-engraving by William Luson Thomas which appeared in the Illustrated London News, in an issue published on 9 April 1859.
The girl selling tickets is holding a poster announcing the bullfight, which is equivalent to the edicts that Murray included in the Italian scenes she painted.
[5] The composition of this painting is similar to her other works: the priest makes up a central vertical axis, and both women are parallel to it.
The colour of the painting is soft in tone, although but this highlights the intensity of the chestnut in the ticket seller's dress and the blue and pink flowers in her hair.
She is wearing a black mantilla and holding an open fan in her left hand; there is a red carnation in her hair and her lips are painted the same colour.
[1] Odalisca (English: Odalisque) is a gouache painting of a Moorish girl wearing a traditional dress in front of a brown background.
The landscape mostly consists of the valley, although in the foreground there is a group of Canarians dressed in traditional clothing and accompanied by grazing animals and cargo.
[1] The landscape is known primarily because of the engraving created by T. Picken for the second volume of Sixteen Years of an Artist's Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands.
It is clearly influenced by Murray's father, especially when compared to Thomas Heaphy's First of Viscount Beresford: both paintings feature very detailed facial expressions.
Julia is portrayed tilted to the left, in fine strokes and extreme detail, especially in the lace and in the jewellery and the rose in the centre of the mantle.
One of the players is partly crouched, trying to light a cigarette that a young girl with black eyes holds to his lips.
[1] This painting depicts a young peasant girl, probably between the ages of ten and twelve, who Murray met when visiting the White Mountains.
