Florence Emily Carlyle

Heffel Auction House Biography and Notes

Florence Carlyle was a prominent late nineteenth / early twentieth century artist, and one of the important portrait painters of her day. For women, this was a time of dramatic change, as they emerged from the Victorian ideals and roles into greater independence and self-realization. Encouraged by artist Paul Peel, Carlyle traveled to Paris to study. She also traveled in Italy and England, and her list of exhibitions by 1902 was considerable, both in Canada and abroad. Carlyle was a modern woman, drawn to the tenets of the Aesthetic movement, a group of poets, painters and designers who were devoted to beauty and who sought to elevate the taste of English industrial society. Certainly this can be seen in Carlyle's lovely portraits of women and exquisite still life works such as this. Roses (No. 17), a luxurious bouquet of flowers that artfully tumble onto the table below, also features a luminous golden bowl. This beautiful work was painted in the same year as one of her best-known works, The Tiff, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario.