Seaford, Sussex

Physical description

Oil on canvas depicting three children, one mending a basket, seated on a rocky promontory above a large bay with a view out to sea at Sussex.

Place of Origin

Great Britain, UK (painted)

Date

1844 (painted)

Artist/maker

William Collins, born 1788 - died 1847 (painter (artist))

Materials and Techniques

Oil on canvas

Marks and inscriptions

'W Collins 1844'

Dimensions

Height: 69.9 cm estimate, Width: 92.7 cm estimate

Object history note

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857

Descriptive line

Oil painting entitled 'Seaford, Sussex' by William Collins. Great Britain, 1844.

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

Parkinson, R., Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 38
The following is the full text of the entry:
"COLLINS, William, RA (1788-1847)

Born London 8 September 1788, the son of the Irish writer William Collins, author of a memoir of George Morland RA, who encouraged the boy's interest in painting. In 1807 he entered the RA schools, and exhibited his first painting there. Made his name with 'The Disposal of a Favourite Lamb' in 1813; elected ARA 1814, RA 1820. Achieved great popularity with his landscapes and, particularly, rustic genre scenes in the 1820s; Ruskin highly praised his works in the 1840s. Married in 1822 the sister of the portrait painter Margaret Carpenter. Travelled extensively in Britain and abroad, especially in Italy 1836-38; these visits are reflected in the subjects he painted. Exhibited 124 works at the RA between 1807 and 1846, and 45 at the BI 1808-43. Librarian at the RA 1840-2. Died London 17 February 1847. His studio sale was at Christie's 31 May-5 June 1847. His two sons were the novelist William Wilkie Collins and the painter Charles Allston Collins. There are watercolours and a sketchbook in the V&A collections.

LIT: William Collins 'List of Pictures and Patrons', two MS volumes 1808-27 and 1827-46, National Art Library, V&A (referred to below as Lists); Athenaeum 20 February 1847, p200 (obit); Art Journal 1847, p137 (obit); W Wilkie Collins Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq, RA 2 vols, 1848 (referred to below as Memoirs); Art Journal 1855, p 141 W. Clarke The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins 1988

Seaford, Sussex
FA31 Neg 67992
Canvas, 69.9 x 92.7 cm (27½ x 36½ ins)
Signed and dated 'W Collins 1844 bl
Sheepshanks Gift 1857

According to the Lists, painted between April 1843 and April 1844, and sold to John Sheepshanks for £36 15s. It was exhibited at the RA in 1844. Collins visited Seaford in September 1841 and made several outdoor sketches; the Memoirs note that the artist used them for this picture, described as 'perhaps as strikingly original a work of its class, as he ever produced'. The Art Union critic thought 'the line of water meets the sand in a manner too hard. This may be intended to show the tide flowing, but it is yet too severe. The group in the foreground is peculiarly happy - one of the artist's most felicitous copies of simple facts.' The artist James Smetham wrote to J H Hall on
24 March 1862:

How well do I remember in 1844 the first sight of Collins's pictures and the others ... the picture I then saw of Collins's is now, I am thankful to say, in the South Kensington collection - the 'Seaford', with the cloud shadows chasing each other on the windy sands, and the lovely group of children in the foreground.

He discusses the painting further in a letter of 29 March 1875. Eleven drawings of Seaford were in the artist's posthumous sale in 1847. A drawing in pencil heightened with white for two of the three foreground figures in the painting is in the V&A collections also from the Sheepshanks Gift (FA10). A watercolour version, signed and dated 1837, was sold at Sotheby's 27 February 1985 (178, 26.5 x 71 cm).
EXH: RA 1844 (141)
LIT: Art Union 1844, p156; Lists; Memoirs II, pp197-8, 252-3; S Smetham and W Davies Letters of James Smetham . . . 1891, pp103, 309-10"

Materials

Oil paint; Canvas

Techniques

Oil painting

Subjects depicted

Children; Seas; Baskets; Coasts; Beaches; Bays; Shores; Seaford

Categories

Children & Childhood; Paintings

Collection code

PDP