Francis Hayman (1707/8-1776). Decorative painting for a supper-box at Vauxhall Gardens, London: "New River, at Islington With a Family Going Awalking, a cow Milking, and The Horns Archly Fixed Over the Husband's Head". Copy of William Hogarth's "Evening", from his series "Four-Times-of-the-Day".

Oil painting, a copy of Hogarth's "Evening", from his series "Four-Times-of-the-Day." It depicts a man with his wife, child and dog walking, with a public house beyond a fence. The man, a dyer, is revealed as a cuckold by the horns of a cow which appear from behind his head.

Purchased, 1994.

Historical significance: This painting was one of the famous series of 50 supper box pictures at Vauxhall Gardens, London. They each formed the back of one 'arbour' or supper box. The arbours were ornate wooden shelters formed of two side walls and a roof, framing picturesque views through the Gardens. At a certain moment in the evening's entertainment, the paintings were 'let fall' [by an as yet unexplained mechanism] to enclose the diners at the back. The front was left permanently open for the fashionable occupants to view and be viewed.

Like many of the surviving paintings, this one has been cut down and retouched at various times. The original dimensions were about 54 x 95 inches. It is painted very thinly in the manner of scene painting. Evening is a version of Hogarth's 1736 painting of the same title, and Hayman's studio also did versions of the other three paintings in Hogarth's series of The Times of the Day. The alternative popular title of Hayman's picture, New River, at Islington With a Family Going Awalking, a Cow Milking, and the Horns Archly Fixed Over the Husband's Head, is taken from a list in The Ambulator; or the Stranger's Companion in a Tour Round London..., London (Bew) p.180 ff., published in 1774.

Hogarth's satires on his fellow citizens of London were very popular and his prints were frequently copied or pirated. The New River Head (a circular reservoir) and Sadler's Wells (next door) were favourite places of resort for the City dwellers, as they were then situated in the fields at the northern edge of the built-up area. There were many farms there supplying milk (hence the presence of the cow) and pasture for the graziers who sold cattle at Smithfield nearby.

This painting is one of seven in the V&A by Francis Hayman which relate to Hayman's work for the Vauxhall Gardens. See 'Historical Context' note on Museum Number P.12-1947 [May Day or The Milkmaid's Garland] for information about Hayman and the Vauxhall Gardens, from Brian Allen, Francis Hayman, Published in association with English Heritage (the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood) and Yale Center for British Art by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, Page 107-9.

E.879-1994