Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/james-tissot-2048" aria-label="More by James Tissot" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">James Tissot</a>
Holyday
Purchased 1928
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
autumn
bottle
cake
chestnut
clothing and personal items
cup / mug
domestic
eating and drinking
England
food and drink
fruit, grape
garden
garden structures
glass
group
groups
groups
hat
I Zingari cricket club
kitchen
knife
leisure and pastimes
man
meat
named groups
objects
people
picnic
places
plate
pool
portraits
reclining
seasons
sitting
St John’s Wood, Grove End Road
tea pot
tray
UK countries and regions
UK London
vessels and containers
water: inland
woman
<p>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.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2007</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
8 August 2001 – 21 April 2003
2003-04-21
2001-08-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-08
French Influence on British Art
Collection based display
3 June 2004 – 15 May 2005
2005-05-15
3 June 2004 – 30 August 2004
2004-08-30
2004-06-03
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
1 October 2004 – 6 February 2005
2005-02-06
2004-10-01
Ulster Museum (Belfast, UK)
http://www.ulstermuseum.org.uk
2004-06-03
Art of the Garden
Exhibition
12 March 2006 – 23 July 2006
2006-07-23
12 March 2006 – 23 July 2006
2006-07-23
2006-03-12
Palazzo della Marra (Barletta, Italy)
2006-03-12
De Nittis e Tissot
Loan-out
31 July 2010 – 27 February 2011
2011-02-27
31 July 2010 – 17 October 2010
2010-10-17
2010-07-31
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
23 November 2010 – 27 February 2011
2011-02-27
2010-11-23
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2010-07-31
Impressionist Gardens
Loan-out
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
Gallery 9
Collection based display
27 September 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
27 September 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
2016-09-27
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2016-09-27
Oscar Wilde: L'impertinent absolu
Loan-out
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2 November 2017 – 7 May 2018
2018-05-07
2017-11-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
21 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-21
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904
Exhibition
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
20 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-20
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870 - 1904
Loan-out
16 March 2019 – 31 May 2019
2019-05-31
16 March 2019 – 31 May 2019
2019-05-31
2019-03-16
MK Gallery (Milton Keynes, UK)
2019-03-16
The Lie of the Land
Tate partnerships & programmes
12 October 2019 – 13 September 2020
2020-09-13
12 October 2019 – 9 February 2020
2020-02-09
2019-10-12
Legion of Honor (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.legionofhonor.org
22 March 2020 – 13 September 2020
2020-09-13
2020-03-22
Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France)
2019-10-12
James Tissot, 1836-1902
Loan-out
Holyday
support: 762 × 994 × 20 mm
frame: 925 × 1185 × 95 mm
Purchased 1928
<div><p><span>The autumn sun glows through the yellow leaves of the horse chestnut tree in this picnic scene. The setting is the garden of James Tissot’s house in St John’s Wood, London, very close to Lord’s cricket ground. It shows a leisurely afternoon: the young people flirt idly with each other, unnoticed by their sleeping chaperone. The cricketers in the red, yellow and blue caps are members of the I Zingari amateur cricket club. Tissot liked to paint the daily life of the fashionable people he saw.</span></p></div>
Online caption
2024-04-22T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
<strong>James Tissot</strong> 1836-1902
<p>
<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/tissot-holyday-n04413" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04413</span></a> <strong>Holiday</strong> <em>c.</em>1876
</p><p>
Inscribed 'J.J. Tissot' b.r.<br/>
Oil on canvas, 30 x 39 1/8 (76.5 x 99.5)<br/>
Purchased from Thos. McLean Ltd. (Clarke Fund) 1928<br/>
<em>Prov:</em> James Taylor; with or through Thos. McLean Ltd., London<br/>
<em>Exh:</em> Grosvenor Gallery, London, May-June 1877 (23) as 'Holyday', lent by James Taylor; <em>James Tissot (1836-1902)</em>, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, May-June 1955 (24); <em>James Tissot, 1836-1902</em>, Arts Council touring exhibition, July-November 1955 (25); <em>James Jacques Joseph Tissot 1836-1902: a Retrospective Exhibition</em>, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, February-March 1968 (26, repr.); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, April-May 1968 (26, repr.)<br/>
<em>Repr:</em> James Layer, <em>Vulgar Society</em> (London 1936), pl.23 as 'The Picnic' <em>c.</em>1879; John Rothenstein, <em>Modern Foreign Pictures in the Tate Gallery</em> (London 1947), pl.23; Carlos Peacock, <em>Painters and Writers</em> (London 1949), pl.58 in colour
</p><p>
Though known in recent years as 'The Picnic', this picture was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 (23) as 'Holyday' (sic), lent by James Taylor. Sidney Colvin in <em>The Fortnightly Review</em>, June 1877, p.830 referred to 'the group of cricketers and ladies beside the water under a horse-chestnut'. Oscar Wilde commented (<em>Dublin University Magazine</em>, XC, July 1877, pp.125-6): 'There is some good colour and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> ... in his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of a withered chestnut tree, with the autumn sun glowing through the yellow leaves in a picnic scene, No.23; the remainder of the picture being somewhat in the photographic style of Frith ... Mr Tissot's over-dressed, common-looking people, and ugly, painfully accurate representation of modern soda water bottles'. Furthermore, in <em>The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer</em>, 9 May 1877, p.6: 'In "A Summer Holiday" [sic] we see the same unhealthy-looking pool and luxuriant vegetation which we noticed in Mr Tissot's "Convalescent", shown in last year's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> exhibition. The accessories are, however, changed. In place of the invalid ... we have a merry pic-nic party.'
</p><p>
'The Convalescent', exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876 and now in the Sheffield City Art Galleries, is the same size as this work and might possibly be considered as a companion piece. As is noted in the catalogue of the Tissot retrospective exhibition at Providence and Toronto: 'The viewpoint is almost the same, but in the Sheffield painting the guests have departed, leaving a convalescent girl and an elderly woman (also in <em>The Picnic</em>) who looks after her. A stick and hat laid across an empty chair suggests a man's absence'. Both pictures show autumnal effects.
</p><p>
The setting is the garden of Tissot's house at 17 Grove End Road, St John's Wood, to which he moved in 1873. Its pool and colonnade appear in various other paintings and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etchings</span></a>. The cricketers in the red, yellow and blue caps are members of the famous I Zingari cricket club and their presence may be partly explained by the fact that Tissot was living only a few hundred yards from Lord's cricket ground. There is the remains of a very sketchy drawing in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/charcoal" title="Glossary definition for 'Charcoal'"><span>charcoal</span></a> on the back of the canvas, possibly for a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> of a standing figure in a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>.
</p><p>
A picture in the Tissot exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, London, in January 1937 (4) was described as a study for this work.
</p><p>
<strong>Published in:</strong><br/>
Ronald Alley, <em>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</em>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.722-3, reproduced p.722


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Catalogue entry
2004-09-14T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults architecture autumn bottle cake chestnut clothing and personal items cup / mug domestic eating and drinking England food and drink fruit, grape garden garden structures glass group groups groups hat I Zingari cricket club kitchen knife leisure and pastimes man meat named groups objects people picnic places plate pool portraits reclining seasons sitting St John’s Wood, Grove End Road tea pot tray UK countries and regions UK London vessels and containers water: inland woman