Elizabeth Adela Forbes (1859-1912)
Statute of Perseus, Florence



Watercolour, signed
30 x 23cm (12" x 9")
Price on application

Elizabeth Armstrong was born in Ottawa in 1859 the only daughter of a Canadian government official named William Armstrong. Her parents decided that it would be beneficial for Elizabeth to receive an English education and she was sent with her mother to school in London, living with an uncle on Cheyne Walk next to Rossetti, whom she admired enormously but never met. She enrolled at the South Kensington School of Art and received rigorous art and academic training which meant that she became a technically superb draughtsman. The watercolour above, most likely dates from this period. In 1878 she returned to Canada to continue her painting but after 3 years moved to Germany and then France. In 1885 she met her future husband Stanhope Forbes while she was in Newlyn.