CCHS

ladies, standing just outside the window has an umbrella.  The sky, through the upper glass, is hazy, and the outline of a tree has the blurred effect produced by falling rain.  The other young lady player (on the left in the window) has pulled the lower casement door towards her to protect her skirt from the rain.

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The signs that they had previously been playing mixed doubles are obvious.  The gentleman (left foreground) is resting his racket on the floor.  The seated lady beside him is holding hers on her lap, and against the wall (on the right) is another racket – and balls on the floor.  The two gentleman players are informally dressed in sporting knickerbockers, stockings and cummerbunds.  Shirt sleeves are casually rolled up.  The two young lady players are wearing comparatively short, non-elaborate summer dresses (to allow free movement) and decorative aprons (whose pockets would hold balls).  All four players wear flat shoes and no headgear.  One of the chaperons (seated right) is making a note of the score.  The lady player in the window is holding something in her right and.  I like to think that it is a skirt-lifter which she has 
temporarily removed during the break in play.  All the details tell us that a game of tennis has been interrupted by rain.  Indeed even the serving of lemonade (by the gentleman background right) may be the premature refreshment intended for a later break.

 

It is easy to predict what might happen next after this “frozen moment”:  the rain may cease, the sun come out and play may be resumed.  Rain, however, may continue, “filling in time” may become pointless, and hope of play may be abandoned, so that other activities are pursued.

 

This picture is very important for sports historians, because, on such a day as this, table tennis (variously called ping-pong or gossima at the tine) was born; it is believed that tennis players, frustrated by ceaseless rain and wishing to practise their skills, invented the game.  Battledores were borrowed from the nursery, the hall or dining table was used as a playing surface, a row of books across the middle provided an improvised net, and balls were fashioned from the lemonade corks. 

 

This seems a very likely, and attractive, conclusion to the narrative of this picture and it has an added interest for tennis collectors:  Edith Hayllar was surely drawing on her own experience – maybe just a day or two before – when rain stopped play on the family court at Castle Priory, Wallingford, Berkshire.  Every detail is just right, and what collector would not yearn for the keenly observed 1880s racket in the foreground?

 

This oil on board (only 21 x 17½ inches), signed and dated 1883, was sold at Christies, King Street, in the Forbes Collection Auction of 19/20 February 2003.  Estimated at £150,000 - £200,000 it made £320,000.  “The Young Tennis Player”, a pencil and watercolour, by Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914) estimated at £3,000 - £5,000.made £3,000.  The 361 works raised nearly £17million.

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Christie’s notes on the Hayllar painting give the information that Edith was one of 9 children and it is likely that some of them posed for her here, but also state that tennis was invented in 1874 and that the first Wimbledon Championships were held in the same year!

 

The catalogue - extending to 3 heavy volumes (cased) and 900 pages – is of the highest quality and very reasonably priced at £65.  It will surely be an instant collector’s item, and if you are keen on art, you should find one now.