'An Old English Homestead', oil on canvas by Richard Redgrave, Britain; signed and dated 1854.

Landscape, oil on canvas.

Given by Mrs Richard Redgrave

Given by Mrs Richard Redgrave, 1889

Redgrave had one of the most varied and interesting careers of any British artist, and as such is represented in more than one part of this exhibition. This picture shows him as an accomplished painter of landscapes, and was considered the best landscape in the 1854 Royal Academy exhibition. In the 1850s, with his several responsibilities as art teacher, curator, and administrator, he sought more peaceful refuge during the summer months with his wife and children at their home in the country, in Abinger, Kent. Nearby, in the adjacent county of Surrey close to where his father was living, he painted this view. It was much admired by critics for its visual truth: 'he renders truly what is before him, no common merit that he is not attempting to improve on nature'. Redgrave was able to relate a great deal of minute detail without, as sometimes happened in Pre-Raphaelite works, the painting being overwhelmed by it.

This view probably depicts the countryside near the artist's country home in Abinger, Kent. A critic praised its 'infinity of leafiness, variety of depths, air and multiplicity of local tintings'. He recognised, however, that it was 'minute, delicate, and almost too feminine in touch'.

183-1889