Cleveland Museum of Art

Interior

Date

1915

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

England, 20th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Gwen John worked slowly and meticulously, producing fewer than 200 paintings during her lifetime. Like this quiet interior with a table, teapot, and cups, her works were invariably small in size, muted in palette, and restrained in mood. About her life and art, she wrote to a friend, “I may never have anything to express, except this desire for a more interior life.” This is one of a series of four paintings of the same subject; the other versions are in the collections of the National Museum of Wales, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The teapot depicted in this interior is a brown betty, a traditional, British-made teapot known for its red clay construction, distinctive round shape, and brown Rockingham glaze, which is believed to enhance tea flavor and heat retention.

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