The Garden Enclosed 1924

Jones made this painting to mark his engagement to Petra Gill in 1924, when he was twenty-eight and she was seventeen. At the time Jones was living in a community led by Petra Gill’s father, the artist Eric Gill. In 1989 it was revealed that Eric Gill sexually abused Petra and her elder sister Betty. It is not known if Jones was aware of this. Petra Gill broke off the engagement in 1926. The painting seems to convey an atmosphere of anxiety and tension. Petra Gill’s hand on Jones’s chest suggests resistance, while the discarded doll (made for her by her father) may symbolise lost childhood. The title refers to the Song of Solomon, in the Hebrew Bible, in which the speaker compares his beloved to an enclosed garden. In Christian tradition, this has been seen as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Gallery label, May 2021