Untitled (Venetian Storyteller)

Oliver Ryhs

England/Germany 1854-1907

Oil on canvas

27.5 x 35.5 in.

Mori and Jacobson Collection

Next to his signature on this painting, the artist inscribed “Venice,” so we know exactly where the setting is; we can even see a hint of a canal behind his storyteller. Rhys’ father and brother were both successful artists, especially his father who had spent a good deal of time in northern Italy. Possibly Rhys retained an affection for the area and catered to the taste for appealing vignettes of Italian life. He often painted pictures of ordinary women working at daily tasks, as he does here. The women listened attentively to the storyteller, as they try to go on with their work. Rhys is quite specific in his depiction of the surroundings of the women, as well as the women themselves, particularly in their costumes. To offset these complicated visual passages, he poses the women against a blank white wall that focuses our eyes on them and the rapt attention they give to the storyteller. The detailed realism Rhys employed here was similar to the style of both his father and his brother (the family name was Williams, but perhaps because it was so common a name, all three of the artists dropped it and went only by their first and middle names).