Physical description
In the right foreground a boat has been pulled up onto the banks of the River Thames. In front of it, to the right, are two men, each wearing a red hat - the one on the left sits on an ?upturned barrel (or something like this) while the other lies down in the grass. To their right is a path next to a grassy slope, behind which, in the distance is a white building and some trees. Three small boats sit on the glassy water of the Thames and in the distance on the left bank are a number of buildings, some with red roofs. A cloudy sky.
Date
ca. 1836 (painted)
Artist/maker
Richard Redgrave, born 1804 - died 1888 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Height: 24.8 cm estimate, Width: 43.2 cm estimate, Height: 40.6 cm framed, Width: 59 cm framed, Depth: 6 cm framed
Object history note
Purchased, 1887
Descriptive line
Oil painting on canvas, 'The Thames from Millbank', Richard Redgrave, ca. 1836
[Frame dimensions 42 x 60 cm]
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 247
This is the full text of the catalogue entry:
"REDGRAVE, Richard, CB, RA (1804-1888)
Born Pimlico, London, 30 April 1804, the son of an engineer and manufacturer, in whose office he first worked as draughtsman and designer. Entered RA Schools 1826. Worked as a drawing master in the 1830s. Exhibited 141 works at the RA between 1825 and 1883, 17 at the BI 1832-59, and 20 (including four watercolours) at the SBA 1829-35 and 1870-9. Early works were landscapes and costume pieces, mainly l8thcentury and in the manner of C R Leslie; from the 1840s he specialised in modem genre and social comment, before returning to landscape, particularly around his home in Abinger, Surrey, relieving the pressure of his administrative duties. Elected ARA 1840, RA 1851; Secretary of the Etching Club 1837-42. In 1847 he began his official career in art education as Master at the Government School of Design, becoming Head Master in 1848, Art Superintendent 1852, Inspector General 1857, and Director 1874. He was Inspector of the Queen's Pictures, compiling a catalogue of the Royal Collection, 1857-79. As he wrote in 1856: 'I regret to find that I am so identified with office work that it is almost forgotten that I am a painter'
(F M Redgrave Richard Redgrave: A Memoir. . . p l 71 ). He published An Elementary Manual of Colourr ... (1853), The Sheepshanks Gallery (1870), and, most famously, with his brother Samuel, A Century of Painters of the English School ... (2 vols, 1866). He was offered a Knighthood in 1869, which he declined; created Companion of the Bath 1880. Died Kensington, London, 14 December 1888. His daughters Frances (who compiled the Memoir of her father) and Evelyn were also exhibiting artists.
LIT: Art Journal 1850, pp48-9 (referred to below as the 'autobiography'), with engr portrait; Art JournaI1859, p206; Athenaeum 22 December 1888, pp854-5 (obit); F M Redgrave Richard Redgrave, CB, RA: A Memoir compiled from his diary 1891 (referred to below as Memoir); F G Stephens in Magazine of Art XV, 1891-2, pp26-9; ed S Casteras and R Parkinson Richard Redgrave 1804-1888 1988, V &A and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA, exhibition catalogue
The Thames from Millbank
211-1887 Neg FE1150
Canvas, 24.8 X 43.2 cm (9¾ X 17 ins)
Purchased 1887
Exhibited at the BI in 1836, as The Thames at Millbank, the size given as 17 by 24 inches, presumably including the frame. It was acquired some time after by the artist's friend Thomas Webster RA.
Redgrave was born and brought up in the area of Pimlico; the family moved from Belgrave Terrace to the King's Road in about 1814. The view depicted seems to be from the north by Lambeth Bridge looking across to what is now the Albert Embankment. Both banks have been transformed in the last 150 years, and none of the buildings in Redgrave's painting seem identifiable, although the church tower on the left is possibly that of St Mary the Less, Black Prince Road (built 1827-8). Before redevelopment, the south side housed Lambeth industries, particularly potteries, while the north side is described by Redgrave in the Memoir as a 'succession of osier-swamps'.
John Ruskin, in a lecture to the BI in 1867, described this reach of the Thames as 'a disgrace to the Metropolis'. It is puzzling that the famous Millbank Penitentiary, on the present site of the Tate Gallery, is not visible. As Krzysztof Cieszkowski, of the Tate Gallery Library, has pointed out to the present writer, Redgrave seems to have forsaken topographical accuracy in making the right (north) bank appear more rural than it probably was, as well as eliminating Vauxhall Bridge and the Penitentiary. Vauxhall Bridge (that is, the earlier version built 1811-16) would have been visible; the later (1862) Lambeth Bridge was preceded by a ferry, which may be alluded to by the boat in midstream in the present work. The buildings in the right background may be houses along Vauxhall Bridge Road, the tall chimney part of one of the glue factories mentioned by Ruskin, and the white house an earlier version of the White Swan. (For a fuller discussion of this area, see K Cieszkowski 'Millbank before the Tate' in The Tate Gallery 1984-86:
Illustrated Biennial Report 1986, pp38-43.)
PROV: Thomas Webster RA; his sale, Christie's 21 May 1887 (182), bought Agnew's for the museum £16 16s (with 210-1887 'Quentin Matsys in his Studio', p246).
EXH: BI 1836 (83); Richard Redgrave 1804-1888, V&A and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1988 (4)
LIT: Casteras and Parkinson ppl01-2 (repr)
Ronald Parkinson."
Materials
Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Men; Boats; River Thames
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
