Oil painting entitled 'A Woody Landscape' by John Crome. Great Britain, ca. 1790-1820.

A figure is shown walking down a lane alongside trees on the edge of a woody landscape. The trees open up on the left to reveal a blue sky with large clouds presiding over the scene.

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857.

John Sheepshanks (1787-1863), art collector, was the son of the wealthy cloth manufacturer and merchant Joseph Sheepshanks. John succeeded his father in the family firm of York and Sheepshanks in Leeds. After his retirement from business in 1827, John Sheepshanks moved to London. He made several trips to the Continent but lived relatively modestly. Apart from art, Sheepshanks was interested in gardening and was a member of both the Royal Horticultural Society and the Athenaeum Club. Sheepshanks liked to pursue his interest in art by entertaining painters and engravers at informal Wednesday "at homes".

Sheepshanks began his interest in art through collecting books of Dutch and Flemish prints. Before he moved to London he made purchases at the Northern Society in Leeds. In London he actively patronized artists including Landseer, Mulready, Leslie, Callcott and Cooke. His taste was for contemporary early Victorian cabinet pictures of anecdotal, sentimental, and instructive subjects, as well as scenes from literature. His collection was unique for its time being the only large scale one of contemporary British paintings. He gave his collection of 233 oils and 298 watercolours, etchings and drawings to the South Kensington museum in 1857 (see departmental file on Sheepshanks). The deed of gift stipulated that "a well-lighted and otherwise suitable" gallery should be built to house his collection near the buildings of the Science and Art department on the South Kensington Site. This followed Sheepshanks' wish to create a 'gallery of British art'. The Sheepshanks Gallery was opened in 1857.

Historical significance: The son of a journeyman and weaver, John Crome (1768-1821) worked as a painter, printmaker and teacher. He was apprenitced to the coach sign painter Francis Whistler from 1783 to 1790. He presumably continued in this trade during the 1790s whilst he was consolidating his artistic training. Early influences on Crome came from the local artists William Beechey and John Opie. Crome also benefited from his friendship with the collector and amateur artist Thomas Harvey. Harvey’s collection included works by Dutch seventeenth century masters including Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682), Meindert Hobbema (1638-1707) and Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691), as well as eighteenth century British artists Richard Wilson (1713-1782) and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). Exposure to these works through Harvey was to have a significant effect on the landscapes of John Crome. From 1792 Crome is documented working as an artist and also as a drawing master to the wives and daughters of local gentry.Whilst teaching drawing to the local gentry, Crome also took artists as pupils. His most famous pupils were James Stark and George Vincent. He was one of the founders of the Norwich Society of Artists in 1803 and worked predominantly in East Anglia. In 1802 he accompanied members of the Gurney family of Earlham Hall, Norwich, who were his pupils, on a tour of the Lake District. He only travelled abroad once, in 1814, to see the art collections brought to Paris by Napoleon. Establishing the chronology of Crome’s oeuvre is difficult as he did not sign his paintings. His work is often confused with that of his eldest son, John Berney Crome (1794-1842). Although often criticized during his lifetime for the “unfinished” quality of his works, within a week of his death people were reported as being desperate to acquire the artist’s paintings. This resulted in a high number of works by his followers and imitators being made during the nineteenth century.

This type of a rural landscape, showing a traveller walking down the lane on the edge of a wood occurs frequently in Crome's works. It can be seen in his paintings such as Grove Scene (Norwich Castle Museum, accession number: 1951.235.727) and On the Skirts of a Forest (V&A museum number 236-1879). Such rural landscapes derive from Dutch Seventeenth-century paintings by artists including Meindert Hobbema (1638-1707) and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). Crome was exposed to the work of these artists through the collection of his friend and patron Thomas Harvey. The composition of a winding path that directs the eye in to the wooded area and up to the large sky that presides over the left of the scene in FA 64 is very close to compositional techniques employed by Hobbema in works like A Road Winding Past Cottages (National Gallery; museum number: NG 2571). The combination of contrasting dark and light tones of the landscape reflect the palette used by the artist van Ruisdael in paintings such as A Pool Surrounded by Trees (National Gallery; museum number NG 854). This style of landscape, influenced by earlier Dutch examples, was developing at the end of the eighteenth century in the work of British artists like John Constable (1776-1837) as well as the Norwich School artists such as Crome. Such scenes contrast to the contemporary interest in dramatic scenes and sublime landscapes of which artists such as Philippe Jaques de Loutherbourg (1740-1812) were exponents.

The painting entered the South Kensington museum as being by Crome when it was acquired as part of the Sheepshanks gift in 1857. During the early twentieth century the discovery of a signed drawing in the British Museum (number 1913-5-28-72) of the same subject by one of Crome's most talented pupils, George Vincent (1796-1832), shed doubt on the attribution of FA 64 to Crome (See object file). It is very unusual for Vincent to sign a work which is not his original composition and this suggested that the drawing may have been a preparatory work for FA 64. As a result of this FA 64 was reattributed to Vincent. This was further strengthened by the fact that Vincent produced an engraving of the same scene, although with the figures of the children omitted. This was printed in 1827 with Vincent's initials "G.V" appearing on the print. Two copies of this engraving are in the V&A collections (museum numbers E.494-1903 and 18951). The date of the print corresponds with the year that Vincent was released from Fleet Prison. Vincent is documented as complaining that he was unable to produce large scale work whilst in the debtor's prison and this print may have been part of an endeavour by Vincent's to make more profit from the composition. It is now accepted that FA.64 is stylistically by John Crome and therefore Vincent must have made his sketch after the work by his master. There also exists a painting of the same scene by Crome's friend Robert Ladbrooke (1770-1742) titled Landscape in the University of Arizona Museum of Fine Art (number 85721). The two children that appear in FA 64 have been left out of this painting suggesting that this work may have been copied from Vincent's engraving. However the close friendship between Ladbrooke and Crome would imply that the two artists worked on the same composition before Vincent produced his drawing and print.

The Norwich School is a name applied to a group of Landscape painters working in the early nineteenth century who were associated with the Norwich Society of Fine Arts, established by John Crome (1768-1821) in 1803. The society was founded with the intention of "an Enquiry into the Rise, Progress and present state of Painting, Architecture and Sculpture, with a view to point out the Best Methods of Study to attain the Greater Perfection in these Arts." It included both professional and amateur artists. The society held exhibitions annually in Norwich from 1805-1825 and then from 1828-1833. The Norwich School was the first self-sustaining provincial artistic community in Britain. Its evolution was due to the relative insularity of both Norfolk merchants and gentry, who provided patronage through purchasing works as wells as employing many of the artists associated with the Norwich School as drawing masters for their wives and daughters. The artistic style of each artist within the Norwich School is often very different. For example the work of the two main figures in the Norwich School, John Crome (1768-1821) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) are very different. Crome's paintings, mainly produced in oil, reflect the influence of the Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes, whilst Cotman employs a more elegant topographical approach, often through the medium of watercolour. The Norwich School artists were united through their depiction of local landscape rather than the employment of a particular style. Crome was perhaps one of the most influential members of the school. This can be seen particularly in the work of his pupils George Vincent (1796-1832) and James Stark (1794-1859).

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