Holyday

This painting is set in the artist’s garden in the wealthy north London suburb of St John’s Wood. It features its distinctive cast-iron colonnade enclosing a large ornamental fishpond. St John’s Wood was considered a rather louche area and this picture of young people flirting, unnoticed by their sleeping chaperone, was considered by some to be rather vulgar. The men are wearing the caps of I Zingari, an elite amateur cricket club.James Tissot had fled to London in 1870 after the fall of the Paris Commune, and stayed until 1882.