Fantasy - Sea and Figures

c. 1893

Watercolor, gouache, and gold metallic paint on fabric (silk?) mounted to paperboard

41.9 × 20.3 cm (16.5 × 8 in)

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● On view now — Collection Gallery, Room 23, West Wall

Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia · verified July 2026

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FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

English artist Charles Conder began his career as a landscape painter in Australia, but he specialized in silk painting upon his return to Europe in 1890. The fan-shaped Fantasy: Sea and Figures displays a delicate seascape dominated by a garlanded medallion of Venus, with classical and modern women bathing in the surf. The scene manifests some of the dreaminess of James McNeil Whistler's Nocturne series as well as the dissipated elegance of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's tableaux of Parisian nightlife.

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