First Love
Oil Painting
1838 - 1839 (painted)
1838 - 1839 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
William Mulready RA (1786-1863) was born in Ireland but moved to London in 1799. With the encouragement of the Scottish painter John Graham (1794-1866) he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1800. His early work tackled a wide range of subjects, including history and portraits, but by 1815 he focused almost exclusively on domestic subjects. He noted his own goals as ‘Story, Character, Expression, Beauty’ and together with the Scottish painter David Wilkie (1785-1841) was the most popular and admired artist in the genre.
‘First Love’ is a good example of the precise detail and brilliant colour which Mulready employed in his domestic scenes. It also shows the layers of meaning he incorporated in his work through carefully selected titles. In the exhibition catalogue to the 1986 exhibition on Mulready held at the V&A, Marcia Pointon discusses this point asking, ‘Is “First Love” the love of the child for its mother or of the youth for the young woman? If this is “First Love” what is second love?'
The painting is one of around 500 British oil paintings, watercolours and drawings which were donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum by John Sheepshanks (1784-1863) in 1857.
‘First Love’ is a good example of the precise detail and brilliant colour which Mulready employed in his domestic scenes. It also shows the layers of meaning he incorporated in his work through carefully selected titles. In the exhibition catalogue to the 1986 exhibition on Mulready held at the V&A, Marcia Pointon discusses this point asking, ‘Is “First Love” the love of the child for its mother or of the youth for the young woman? If this is “First Love” what is second love?'
The painting is one of around 500 British oil paintings, watercolours and drawings which were donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum by John Sheepshanks (1784-1863) in 1857.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | First Love (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | oil on canvas |
| Brief description | Oil painting on canvas entitled 'First Love' by William Mulready. Great Britain, 1838/9. |
| Physical description | At the centre of the image a young woman holding a baby leans against the wall of some sort of cottage dwelling. She is bathed in the early evening light. Close by, to the right, a young man perches with his hands meeting beneath his right leg. He looks at the young woman. Between them at the bottom of the image two dogs play by the base of a tree trunk. At the left of the image in the background are trees. A woman with her right arm raised leans out from (presumably) the door of the dwelling the girl is leaning against. A small boy with both arms raised runs toward the young man and woman from the left. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857 |
| Object history | Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857 |
| Production | attribution taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990 |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | William Mulready RA (1786-1863) was born in Ireland but moved to London in 1799. With the encouragement of the Scottish painter John Graham (1794-1866) he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1800. His early work tackled a wide range of subjects, including history and portraits, but by 1815 he focused almost exclusively on domestic subjects. He noted his own goals as ‘Story, Character, Expression, Beauty’ and together with the Scottish painter David Wilkie (1785-1841) was the most popular and admired artist in the genre. ‘First Love’ is a good example of the precise detail and brilliant colour which Mulready employed in his domestic scenes. It also shows the layers of meaning he incorporated in his work through carefully selected titles. In the exhibition catalogue to the 1986 exhibition on Mulready held at the V&A, Marcia Pointon discusses this point asking, ‘Is “First Love” the love of the child for its mother or of the youth for the young woman? If this is “First Love” what is second love?' The painting is one of around 500 British oil paintings, watercolours and drawings which were donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum by John Sheepshanks (1784-1863) in 1857. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | FA.141[O] |
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| Record created | February 14, 2006 |
| Record URL |
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