Doll - "Lydia" c. 1937

Anne Colman created this watercolour of a doll, called 'Lydia', sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Just imagine Anne, carefully mixing her watercolours, testing the consistency on a scrap of paper, and then, with a fine brush, starting to trace the outline of Lydia’s dress. I wonder if she made this for herself, or perhaps as a gift for a child? I imagine her carefully painting the tiny floral pattern on the fabric, each little flower a testament to her attention to detail. And that pink trim! It feels so deliberate, so perfectly placed to accentuate the doll's figure. The thinness of the watercolour allows the paper to breathe, giving the doll a delicate, almost ethereal quality. There's something so charming about the naivety of this artwork, a reminder that art doesn't always need to be grand or complicated to be deeply moving. It is a conversation between the artist and the viewer, across time and space.