This watercolour was printed on the same trip to Giomein, on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, as the "Group with Parasols, and repeats the theme of intermingled male and female figures resting in an Alpine meadow. Once again the men are characterised by raised legs and crossed knees as if guarding the woman between them in an intimate "menage a trois."
The woman is probably Polly Barnard, and she rests her head against the shoulder of Peter Harrison, while her legs are tucked in under those of his brother Ginx. Visible above her elbows, shoes, hats, and parasol from a pattern of repeating shapes. Colours, predominantly blue and and white, are used to the same effect. What looks at first sight so natural and unstudiedbecomes on closer inspection a work of conscious design and subtle geometry. The sense of immediacy is heightened by the way we appear almost on top top of the figures, in deliberately foreshortened perspective. Where the surface of an oil painting is dense and slab-like in texture, the transparency of the watercolour medium lightens the colour and bathes the scene in a soft light. The figures, vignetted in the centre of the composition, are wittily characterised, while the surrounding landscape is deliberately left out of focus, a blur of soft washes with occasional splashes ofyellow gouache for the highlights. A seecond watercolour, showing the same trio resting on a bank, but differently arranged, still belongs to descendants of Peter Harrison. It is inscribed to the "Comaniacs", a humorous nickname for the friends of Mrs Comyns Carr, the sister of Peter's wife Alma Strettell. Both watercolours capture the spirit of camaraderie that existed between this tight-knit group of Sargent's friends.
