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Temple Entrance
by Jowett, Katharine

Original caretaker of this artwork: eBay

	Artist:	Jowett, Katharine
	Title:	Temple Entrance
	Series:
	Date of first edition?:	circa 1920-1940
	Publisher (first edition)?:	Self
	Publisher (this edition)?:	Self
	Medium (first edition):	Watercolour
	Medium (this edition):	Watercolour
	Format (first edition):	Oban
	Format (this edition):	Oban
	DB artwork code:	45246
	Notes (first edition)?:	A Very Rare Original Watercolour by the esteemed artist Katharine Jowett depicting the what I believe to be an outside of a Temple. The watercolour is initialed K. J. to the bottom right hand corner as you look at the painting. The painting is on watercolour paper mounted onto sturdy card. The mount is attached to one side only so that it can be turned as a page in a book. The mount is creased in places- please see the photographs. The colours are still vibrant. The subject matter evokes feelings of a long ago past, there is a simplicity to the style and subject matter Katharine Jowett was painting in the Peking/ Beijing area during the late 1920's and early 1930's. Her painting and prints were very very popular amongst the upper class Chinese and the Western population. Chairman Mao himself had a set of prints in his office. The style that Jowett painted in is almost impressionistic in style. Dimensions without the mount is length approx 15 inches - Width approx 10 inches. Dimensions with the mount is length approx just under 19 inches - Width 14 inches.
	Notes (this edition)?:
	Artist Bio:	Katharine Jowett was born in Devon, England around 1890. Her father, Reverend Timothy Wheatley, was a minister at the Mint Methodist Church in Exeter. She followed a Methodist missionary to China with whom she thought she was in love, but changed her mind and instead married Hardy Jowett, a member of the British community in Peking. The Jowetts set up house in Peking and had two sons. Very little is known about Jowett's artistic training, if she had any at all. Somehow she managed to learn how to carve and print color linoleum cuts. There are approximately twenty-five known designs, some issued in limited editions, and all of which depict scenes in and around Peking. She tended to work in small sizes (which no doubt simplified the process), and always framed her designs with a thick border reminiscent of the arts and crafts style. She never used a black outline block; her compositions tended to be impressionistic with color built up in layers suggestive of an impressionist oil painting. It is thought that Jowett made the majority of her prints during the 1930's. After her husband, Hardy Jowett, passed away in 1936, Katharine remained in Peking. In 1940 the influential shin-hanga collector and dealer, Robert Muller, took tea with Jowett at her home. Presumably it was upon this occasion that Muller acquired the Jowett prints which were in his collection. Not long after Muller's visit, the war caught up with the expatriates in Peking, and Jowett was interred by the Japanese, where she met a German baron in the prisoner-of-war camp with whom she had a relationship but never married. After the war Jowett returned to England to live near her family. She continued to paint, but no longer produced prints. (from Scholten Japanese Art).