4780 x 7015 px | 40,5 x 59,4 cm | 15,9 x 23,4 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
1904
Lieu:
The Strand, London
Informations supplémentaires:
Cette image appartient au domaine public, ce qui signifie que le droit d’auteur a expiré ou que le titulaire du droit d’auteur a renoncé à ses droits. Les frais facturés par Alamy couvrent l’accès à la copie haute résolution de l’image.
This little fountain no longer exists. It stood until recently before the western front of St Mary's-le-Strand, and marked the place where the first hackney coach stand was set up, in 1634. I much prefer the flower girls I have come across to the mill girls. They are not so rough in manner, —I daresay the fact that they live among flowers has a refining influence on them. There used to be a group of the damsels round a little drinking- fountain, which has lately been removed, in the Strand, just opposite St Mary-le-Strand. I sketched them from inside the railings of the church. A deformed crossing-sweeper — on the look-out for a tip, no doubt—offered to prevent anybody from staring through at me as I worked, and with the help of his broom and some extra- parliamentary language he succeeded admirably. I asked one of the flower girls if she would come and sit for me in my studio in South Kensington. She was much pleased at the project, and on the appointed day she arrived in a state of suppressed excitement. She told me all the other girls were "fit to be tied " with envy. This expression sounded familiar to me, and I was not surprised when she told me her mother was Irish. She had never been in a studio before, and all the time she was sitting I saw her eyes wandering round the room, taking in everything. At last she said triumphantly, " I knowed you was a lydy the first day you came down to paint." " How so ? " I asked. "Well, " said she, "when you had done your painting you packed up your things and carried them off yourself." From the way she said it, I imagine there had been a heated argument over this point - Rose Barton - from Familiar London
