Sir William Orpen, Portrait of Emily Scobel - Study for ‘The Mirror’ (1900) (Lot 103, Sheppard’s, 15 September)
Emily Scobel was one of the earliest models for William Orpen, where she became the subject for several of his early masterpieces that established him as a leading portrait painter in London in the early 1900s. Works include ‘The Mirror’, ‘The Bedroom’, and ‘The English Nude’, as well as several studies of her, but the one in this sale (Lot 103), being the most significant. When he exhibited the mirror, it received great acclaim from critics, including Alice Meynell, writing in the Pall Mall Gazette, stating that Orpen’s exceptionally mature work showed ‘much more than promise’. The work also shows the influence the work of Jan Van Eyck had on him, with the inclusion of a mirror depicting another scene, inspired from his Arnolfini Portrait from 1434.

Sir William Orpen, The Mirror, 1900

The study itself is very interesting, with her face being shadowed or almost hidden by the brim of her hat, hiding her identity, while her grace blooms, as Orpen focuses on capturing the folds of the dress and fine draughtsmanship. It reminds me of another work we sold by Orpen in September of last year, which was titled ‘Girl at a Window’, and was a study for another major work a year after ‘The Mirror’, which was titled ‘Window in London Street’, which he exhibited at the RHA in 1903, Catalogue Number 6. I compare these two because they both display Orpen’s mindset in figuring out the positioning of the central figure before deciding on the final placing of the model in the finished oil. In the study for ‘The Mirror’, it shows her standing beside a chair starting to unveil her dress, looking straight ahead, while the finished oil shows her seated looking directly at the viewer. With the study for ‘Window in London Street’ showing Grace Orpen with her hand on the window sill and looking away from it, while the finished oil painting shows her looking out, and her other hand above a table with vases of flowers.

Sir William Orpen, Girl at a Window - Study for Window in London Street 1900, sold, these rooms, 16 September 2025, Lot 79

Sir William Orpen, Window in London Street, 1901

There is very little known about Scobel apart from her association with Orpen. We know that she was born in 1877, and from the late 1890s, almost certainly around 1897, when she was 20, she started working as an artist’s model at the Slade school of Art, the same time Orpen started his studies there. About two years later, in 1899, she met William Orpen and they fell in love, eventually becoming engaged. She was regarded as ‘his first true love’. However, a year later, she left Orpen for Max West, another student at the Slade, but one who never really succeeded from his studies, and became a quite minor watercolour and sketch artist. He was born in 1880 and died in 1951. She left Orpen because, in her own words, ‘he was too ambitious’. At the same time Orpen was with Emily, he was also courting Grace Knewstub, who didn’t want to pose for him at the time, and eventually they married in 1901, when Emily broke the engagement off with him.

Max West, Aldermaston Heath, Watercolour

In the 1901 UK Census, she was documented as being a 24 year old servant living in Lewisham, London working in the Churchward family with Mary Scobel, who was two years younger than her, and either her sister or cousin, but more than likely her sister. She ended up marrying Max West, but there’s very little mentioned about him, or how their marriage unfolded. Apart from Orpen, Scobel posed for other prominent artists at the Slade, such as Augustus John, and it is believed that she was also the subject of a work by Dermod O’Brien. He possibly met her in 1897, or through his shared studio in Chelsea, in 1899, with the Slade lecturer Henry Tonks, whose speciality was life drawing, as he was previously a fully-qualified surgeon and his knowledge of anatomy proved invaluable, and this proved pivotal for Orpen’s expert skill in draughtsmanship.

Dermod O’Brien, Portrait of a Model, Thought to be Emily Scobel, Sold, Whyte’s, ‘Irish Art’, 18 November 2003, Lot 53

Apart from this, there is next to no information on Scobel and Orpen didn’t include her in his memoirs. Instead, Orpen highlighted through his works the grace and beauty, and existence of a young woman, who disappeared into thin air after 1901. The fact that he kept ‘The English Nude’ in his personal collection, hanging it over the fireplace of 8 South Bolton Gardens, South Kensington really speaks a thousand words, but ultimately indicates that he still held onto the love he had for Scobel, his first true love.

Sir William Orpen, The English Nude, 1900, which remained in Orpen’s collection until his death