Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1849 (painted)
Artist/maker
Frederick Goodall, born 1822 - died 1904 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Oil on panel
Marks and inscriptions
'F. Goodall/1849'
Dimensions
Height: 20.3 cm estimate, Width: 29.2 cm estimate, Height: 30 cm approx., framed, Width: 40 cm approx., framed
Object history note
Bequeathed by John Jones, 1882
Descriptive line
Oil painting, 'The Village Post Office', Frederick Goodall, 1849
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Parkinson, R., Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, London: HMSO, 1990, pp. 112-13
The following is the full text of the entry:
"GOODALL, Frederick, RA (1822-1904)
Born St John's Wood, London, 17 September 1822, the son and pupil of the engraver Edward Goodall, best known for his engravings after J M W Turner. Studied at the life school in St Martin's Lane, and exhibited watercolours at the Society of Arts as early as 1836. Exhibited 164 works at the RA between 1838 and 1902 (and 50 Egyptian studies there in 1869), 33 at the BI 1839-41. His early works were mostly village genre scenes in the manner of Sir David Wilkie (whose works he also copied), but after travelling in Egypt in the late 1850s his work was principally Egyptian and biblical in subject, beginning with the ten-foot long painting 'Arabian Encampment at the Wells of Moses' in 1860. After 1889, he painted some English landscapes and a few portraits. Elected ARA 1852, RA 1863. Travelled in Normandy 1838, 1839 and 1840, Brittany 1841, 1842 and 1845, North Wales 1843, Ireland 1844, Venice 1857, and Egypt 1858-9 and 1870. Died St John's Wood, London, 28 August 1904. Two of his sons, Frederick Trevelyan (see below) and Howard, were also artists. Sales of his collections were at Christie's 25 May 1893 and (in the name of his daughter Ricca) 20 February 1905; there seems also to have been a sale at his house in Avenue Road, because of financial difficulties, in November 1902.
LIT: Art Journal1850, p213 (a short 'autobiography'), 1855, ppl09-12; F Goodall Reminiscences 1902; Art Journal 1904, pp301-2 (obit); N G Slarke Frederick Goodall, RA Peterborough 1981
The Village Post Office
512-1882 Neg 70215
Panel, 20.3 x 29.2 cm (8 x 11½ ins)
Signed and dated 'F. Goodall/1849' bl
Jones Bequest 1882
Presumably a small version of, rather than a sketch for, the painting exhibited at the 81 in 1850 (52, 'The Post Office', measurements given in the catalogue as '53 by 70 inches'). It was engraved by C W Sharpe for the Art Journal in 1862, and sold at Sotheby's 22 March 1989 (185).
The three principal foreground groups of figures are posed in the same way (with slight variations of detail) in both paintings, but the backgrounds are completely different, the exhibited picture having a more stage-like setting with fewer subsidiary figures.
The Art Journal article of 1862 commented on the narrative: the left-hand group is reading The Times, the headline of which is VICTORY (the words above are illegible in the engraving), while the central group, 'the widow and the fatherless', have received a letter with a black seal that 'tells them the "victory" has made them desolate'. The original Athenaeum review of the 1850 BI exhibition more specifically refers to the first Sikh War of 1845-6: the village barber reads aloud from 'a late edition of the Times containing the Indian Mail, which has brought news of one of the victories of Hardinge and Gough on the Sutlej'. Both the Athenaeum and the Art Journal critics admired the 81 picture.
The Art Journal in 1862 also commented that 'years back it was no uncommon thing to find a country post-office at the inn of the village or small town'; presumably Goodall printed the sign 'Post Office' in both pictures to make this aspect of the narrative clearer. Both the Indian wars and the development of the Post Office were topics of public interest and appeal in the 1840s. For a full account see J Farrugia The Letter Box: a history of post office pillar and wall boxes 1969, in which E V Rippingille's 1837 'A Country Post Office' is reproduced as the frontispiece.
The finished nature of the painting, and the variations in detail, such as the soldier's son in the centre holding a toy sword rather than a drum as in the exhibited picture, suggest that this is a small-scale replica rather than a sketch.
Thomas Falcon Marshall exhibited 'The Arrival of the Coach - a roadside inn a century ago' at the RA in 1850, that is a few months after Goodall's painting was shown at the 81; it has a similar subject and compositional structure. The similarity was not noticed by the critics of the Art Journal and the Athenaeum; the latter (8 June 1850, p615) merely wrote of 'much merit' and 'a subject rendered of additional interest in these days of rapid locomotion', a comment also suitable to the present work.
LIT: (BI picture) Athenaeum February 1850, p163; Art Journal 1850, pp89, 213, 1862, pl72 (repr on facing page); Goodall p381"
Materials
Oil paint; Panel
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Horse; Dog (animal); Post office; Letter (correspondence)
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
