Quentin Matsys in His Studio

Date

ca. 1839 (painted)

Artist/maker

Richard Redgrave, born 1804 - died 1888 (painter (artist))

Materials and Techniques

Oil on millboard

Dimensions

Height: 15.3 cm estimate, Width: 17.7 cm estimate

Object history note

Purchased, 1887

Descriptive line

Oil painting, 'Quentin Matsys in his Studio', Richard Redgrave, ca. 1839

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 246
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

Quentin Matsys in his Studio
210-1887 Neg HH4020
Millboard, 15.3 X 17.7 cm (6 X 7 ins)
Purchased 1887

Presumably an oil sketch for the painting exhibited at the RA in 1839 (377), 'Quentin Matsys, the blacksmith of Antwerp', which had the following explanatory quotation appended to the title in the catalogue: 'Quentin Matsys fell in love with the daughter of a painter, but her father refused to give her to any but an artist. Quentin set himself to learn the art; he painted the well-known picture of the "Misers", and won the maiden. Vide Lives of the Painters'. The finished picture is now in a private collection, USA (see
Casteras and Parkinson 1988, p104, cat no 13, repr)
In his 1850 'autobiography', the artist records that the picture was well
hung at the RA and purchased by Mr D Salomons, marking a turning point in his career: 'Now I truly began to have my own way in Art; the greater portion of my teaching was given up; I had pleasure in my work; some of my early liabilities and difficulties were cleared away, and my progress seemed most hopeful'.

The Athenaeum critic noted:

In this picture, the lover's part is the worst filled, the old man's the best. He gloats with a professional curiosity and eagerness upon the work exhibited to his inspection - thinking rather of tone and contour, and detail and balance of colour, then the miracle which has converted the Romeo of the anvil into the Romeo of the palette, forgetting that there is one behind him, playing with her gold chain to beguile her pretty impatience, till the moment when he must give his consent. This old painter's figure gives good promise for Mr Redgrave.

The Art Union, after describing the subject at some length, concluded that Matsys's expression was too much of a 'sly leer', but the painting 'abounds in proofs of true talent', and marks Redgrave as 'a new candidate for fame'.
The 'Lives of the Painters' to which the RA catalogue referred and which provided this tale of Matsys's early development was presumably Carel van Mander's Schilderboeck (first published 1604), a principal source of knowledge of Dutch and Flemish artists. Although he refers to a poem in Latin by Lampsonius, which was printed under an engraved portrait of Matsys, van Mander himself doubted the story. Matsys was probably a blacksmith in his earliest years, as was his father, but is seems likely that he received formal training rather than teaching himself to paint. The picture he is showing in Redgrave's work is the well-known 'The Money-changer and his Wife' (signed and dated 1514, that is, when the artist was nearly 50 years old, now in the Louvre); it is perhaps intended as ironic comment on the main subject of the marriage arrangement.

PROV: Thomas Webster RA; his sale, Christie's 21 May 1887 (181), bought
Agnew's for the museum £16-16-0 (with 211-1887 below).

EXH: Richard Redgrave 1804-1888 V&A and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1988 (14)

LIT: (RA picture) Athenaeum 25 May 1839, p397, Art Union 1839, p70 Art Journal 1850, p48, Memoir p42; Casteras and Parkinson p104 (repr)

Ronald Parkinson."

Materials

Oil paint; Millboard

Techniques

Oil painting

Categories

Paintings

Collection code

PDP