Will You Be My Valentine?

Watts was born in London and where he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1835, exhibiting his first painting at the Royal Academy, The Wounded Heron, in 1837. In 1843 his Caractacus won a £300 prize in the Westminster Hall Competition which enabled him to travel to Italy, returning to London in 1847. Working as a painter and sculptor of portraits and historical and allegorical subjects he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, Grosvenor Gallery and elsewhere. In the 1880s he was considered one of Britain’s most eminent artists, refusing a baronetcy on two occasions. He was not a member of any particularly artistic group or movement but followed his own individual style. Limnerslease, his house and studio near Godalming, Surrey, is now the Watts Museum and is devoted to his work. It has been suggested that the present work is a portrait of Blanche Clogstoun, the orphan niece of Watts’ friends and long-time hosts Mr and Mrs Thoby Prinsep. She became the artist’s legally adopted ward.