George Dunlop Leslie
(1835 - 1921)
 

George Dunlop Leslie RA was a British genre painter, author and illustrator. His early works, such as Matilda (1860) showed the strong influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, but he settled into a more academic, aesthetic, style of painting with the aim of showing "pictures from the sunny side of English domestic life". He often used children as subjects and his work was praised by John Ruskin for its portrayal of the "sweet quality of English girlhood". One of his pictures, This is the Way we Wash our Clothes was used as a poster in an advertising campaign for soap. Despite its apparently trivial subject matter, however, Leslie's work was highly regarded by critics of the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dunlop_Leslie

Sun and Moon Flowers
1889
Oil on Canvas
72 x 72 cm
Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London Corporation

 

This painting depicts the view from the artist’s drawing room window in his house at Wallingford on Thames. Beyond his garden, on the opposite riverbank, one can see a lush meadow. Leslie claimed that the entire work was painted from life. The sunflowers are intended to symbolise devotion to art. The title’s “moonflowers” refers to the two young women depicted. Some argue, however, that the moonflowers are the paler blooms in the girls’ arrangements although, of course, such flowers do not actually exist. One of the girls is the artist’s friend whilst the other is a model the artist frequently featured in his work.