Mary in the House of St. John

Of the two finished watercolours, this is often considered the better. DGR himself regarded it as “the more finished” of the two (the other he said was “the more forcible” (quoted in Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 1, 67).

This was the first of the versions of the picture that DGR completed (in 1858). He had begun work on the subject in 1856 when he made a drawing for the watercolour commissioned by Ellen Heaton. But he seems not to have finished the Heaton picture until the year after this version for Lady Trevelyan. DGR exhibited the picture at the Hogarth Club in January 1859 (see George Boyce's diary entry for January 3, 1859).

• Elzea, Bancroft and Related Pre-Raphaelite Collections, 106-107.
• Grieve, Art of DGR: Watercolors and Drawings, 33-35.
• Marillier, An Illustrated Memorial , 99-100.
• Sharp, DGR: A Record and a Study, 162-163.
• Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 1, 65-67 (no. 110).
• Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 2, plate 154.
• Surtees, Diaries of George Price Boyce, 25.