Oil Painting, 'Lansdown Fair, near Bath', Thomas Barker, ca. 1780 - 1847

Oil painting

Given by Charles T. Maud

Given by Charles T. Maud, 1871
Provenance : bought by the artist's friend and patron Sir William Cockburn
Re. Charles T. Maud : Taken from Somersetshire parishes; a handbook of historical reference to all places in the county: 'Bathampton / Charles Theobald Maud of the Manor House, farmer, horse-breeder, and collector of pictures. Left Harrow 1808-9. Bal. Col. Oxf. BA 1818.' Maud was also the cousin of W J Broderip, the eminent naturalist, who owned William Holman Hunt's 'The Hireling Shepherd' (City of Manchester Art Galleries). Maud commissioned a replica of the sheep in the background of "The Hireling Shepherd' but Hunt persuaded him to commission a new piece, 'Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep)' (Tate Britain).

Historical significance: This is presumably identical with 'Landsdown Fair, with men playing at ninepins' exhibited at the British Institution in 1813, number 37 (the size given in the catalogue as 44 by 55 inches including the frame). The 'British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts under the Patronage of His Majesty' was founded 1805. It was a private 19th-century club in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists, and unlike the Royal Academy its membership was made up of connoisseurs rather than practicing artists. A number of Barker's work seems to have been exhibited at this venue. The companion piece to this painting, 'Landsdown Fair, with gipsy fortune tellers' was number 41 in the same exhibition. According to the Departmental File for Barker, this painting was in the USA 1971, having come from a collector by the name of Ford (a black and white photograph is on the file, accompanying a letter from a New York art appraiser, Victor D. Spark, 1971). Two related subjects - 'Landsdown Cattle Fair' and 'Landsdown Horse Fair' - were lots 129 and 130 in the J.H.S. Pigott sale, 11 Oct, 1949. Their measurements (48 by 36 inches), if correctly given, preclude identification with the B.I. paintings.

Landsdown Heath, outside Bath, was the venue of the Landsdown Fair, a popular festival of sports and pastimes, including horse-races, foot-races, cudgel matches, jumping, wrestling and boxing. It was a subject that Barker returned to in a number of paintings. The figure of the blind beggar man in this painting, on the right of the standing figures, is repeated as a figure study in Barker's collection of lithographs, 'Impressions of Rustic Figures After Nature', a set of forty figure studies published 1813, by the printer D J Redman (a copy is in the V&A, pressmark 93.A.73). The following year Redman published a companion set of Barker's landscape studies, though neither proved a financial success. This figure of the blind man also appears in a painting 'The blind beggar' (Holburne Museum of Art, Bath), while the centre standing figure is recorded as being Barker's carpenter John Palmer (see 'The Barkers of Bath', Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, 1986, exhibition cat. 38).

This painting depicts Lansdown fair that took place annually just outside Bath. The fair was a popular theme in the nineteenth century, perhaps the most well know representation being the painting Derby Day by William Powell Frith (Tate Britain), a sketch for which is in the V&A's collection.

In this painting the light clouds create a backdrop to the figures in the centre of the painting. This draws our attention to the various characters in the left foreground as they play a game of nine pins. A number of the figures were based on local characters from Bath where Barker worked. The upright central figure is believed to be John Palmer, a resident of Bath. Barker's attention to detail creates a keenly-observed picture of the various activities pursued at this annual fair.

223-1871