Paul Eugène Cremetti, London (aquired directly from the artist in January 18, 1911)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, December 2, 2002, lot 105, illustrated
Richard Green, London
Sale: Christie's, New York, October 27, 2004, lot 70, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Godward letter to Cremetti, January 19, 1911, Milo-Turner Collection
Vern Grosvenor Swanson, John William Godward: The Eclipse of Classicism, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1997, p. 227, no. 1

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined. The inscription on the reverse is clearly visible. The paint has been cleaned and varnished. There are no retouches or abrasions to the paint and clearly the condition is good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Carina was painted during Godward's brief stay in Rome in 1910, when he was making plans to move more permanently to Italy. According to a letter in the Milo-Turner collection, Carina was completed before December 1910 when the artist was at work upon the larger Noonday Rest.

Carina is a fine example of the bust length portrait heads in which Godward's superior rendering of warm skin tones, cool marble and diaphanous fabric, are expressed in their most condensed and abstract form. Unlike Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, Frederic, Lord Leighton and Edward Poynter, whose half-length depictions of Grecian ladies, almost always portray historical or mythological heroines, Godward's pictures are less formal and represent a type of feminine beauty rather than a specific identity. The choice of title, derived from the name of the Classical virgin of the ancient kingdom of Caria in western Asia Minor, is merely a reflective glance to the austerity of Antiquity. The name Carina suggests the purity of devotional virginity, but also the humid sensuality of the exotic East. However, this is secondary to the decorative harmonies of flower-tinted colour and graceful sensual form. Godward's aims were to paint a more aesthetic form of Classicism, free of narrative and action and concentrated upon the beauty of form and colour. Of the small number of painters who continued to paint loosely classical su🎃bjects into the twentieth century, Godward was arguably th🉐e most successful and accomplished.

Carina was purchased from the artist by Paul Eugène Cremetti who had taken over the business ♏of Thomas Mclean in 1908 and became Godward's commercial agent.