Emily Florence Mason

Signed l.r.: EFlorence Mason, watercolour 49.5 x 32.5 cm.; 19 ½ x 12 ¾ inches The artist, who was known as Florrie, was born in Birmingham, and raised in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the daughter of Robert Crump Mason a dispensing chemist. Mason studied at the Royal College of Art in London and was influenced for a time by the Pre-Raphaelites. She painted portraits, oriental and Indian subjects, decorative pictures and also worked as an illustrator. The artist left London and returned to Bromsgrove where she had an established artist’s practise by the age of 30 and taught art for a time at Howell’s School, Llandaff, Cardiff. She lived in London again later in life. She travelled to India and for a time was Honorary Secretary of the Ceylon Society of Arts. Mason’s work was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Royal West of England Academy, the Royal Institute, The Cardiff Art Society, and the Birmingham Art Gallery. In 1921 she exhibited four works at the Society of Women Artists. Kailasanathar Temple in Srivaikuntam, a village in Tamil Nadu 30 km from Tirunelveli, is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. The Dravidian temple has three precincts. Shiva is worshipped as Kailasanathar and his consort Parvati as Sivakami. A granite wall surrounds the temple, enclosing all its shrines. The temple has an unusual flat gateway tower, unlike other South Indian temples that have a pyramidal entrance tower. The temple was originally built by Chandrakula Pandya Vijayanagar and Nayak kings commissioned pillared halls, sculptures and major shrines in the temple during the 16th century.