Born in Australia, Hornel was raised in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, where he lived for nearly his whole life. He attended art school at Edinburgh for three years, and for two years at Antwerp under Professor Verlat. Returning from Antwerp in 1885, he met George Henry, a prominent member of the Glasgow School, and aligned himself with the group’s principles. Part of the Art Nouveau movement, the so-called Glasgow Boys taught Hornel how to capture the natural light effects in his compositions, which mainly included figures and landscapes. Hornel was also highly inspired by Japanese art, following an eighteen-month-long trip to Japan with Henry between 1893 and 1894. There, his subjects included geishas and silk markets, allowing the artist to accommodate late-19th and early-20th-century British collectors’ insatiable desires for japonisme and Orientalist art. His inclusion of cherry blossoms, Japan’s national flower that had only been introduced to Britain decades prior, in A Spring Roundelay further underscores this deep admiration and appreciation for Japanese subjects.

This 1910 edition of Hornel’s Spring Roundelay is an earlier version of his celebrated Springtime Roundelay, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1911 and now residing in the collection of Glasgow Museums. It has been reported that the King and Queen of England, upon seeing the painting at the exhibition, exclaimed to the press, “Everybody who admires pictures should have a Hornel in their home." Nearly identical in composition and execution, the present edition matches the monumental scale and compelling color of the Royal Academy masterpiece.