Object Type
Oil paintings with sentimental scenes of children in the countryside became popular with collectors such as John Sheepshanks and the Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend, as well as with the Victorian public in general.
Subjects Depicted
This picture shows an idyllic scene of childhood set in a cottage. The children are playing 'sailing boats', blowing on a piece of wood with a paper sail, floating in the family wash tub. When it was exhibited at the British Institution in 1844, the critics noted that the game had not yet become very animated and the whole picture was really a study of a cottage interior with admirably painted figures in rather a Dutch style.
People
Thomas Webster (1800-1886) began as a portrait painter, but went on to produce small-scale subject pictures in oil and watercolour for the rest of his long career. His most famous and popular work, The Village Choir, often reproduced for book and other illustration, is also in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Charles Dickens thought Webster was such a good a painter of children that he commissioned him to paint Squeers School-Dotheboys Hall, an illustration to his novel Nicholas Nickelby.
Date
1843 (made)
Artist/maker
Webster, Thomas (RA), born 1800 - died 1886 (painter (artist))
Materials and Techniques
oil on mahogany panel
Marks and inscriptions
'T Webster./1843'
Dimensions
Height: 37.3 cm, Width: 57.1 cm, Depth: 7 cm, Height: 58 cm framed, Width: 76.8 cm framed
Object history note
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857. By Thomas Webster RA (born in London, 1800, died in Cranbrook, Kent, 1886)
Exhibited at the British Institution 1844
Descriptive line
Oil painting 'Contrary Winds', 1843, Thomas Webster.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, pp. 300-301
The following is the full text of the entry:
"WEBSTER, Thomas, RA (1800-1886)
Born Pimlico, London, 20 March 1800, son of a member of staff of the Royal Household. Chorister in Chapel Royal, entered RA Schools 1821, winning gold medal 1824. In a long and successful career, exhibited 83 works at the RA between 1823 and 1879, 39 at the BI 1824-44, and eight at the SBA 1825-34. Early pictures were portraits and historical subjects, but following success of 'Rebels Shooting a Prisoner' (showing children at play) 1827, specialised in similar scenes, and of school and village life, comparable to those of Wilkie and Mulready. Influential and much admired, they became popular through engravings. Elected ARA 1840, RA 1846, and Honorary Retired RA 1876.
Contributed illustrations to the Etching Club's 'Deserted Village', 'Songs of Shakespeare' and 'Etch'd Thoughts' (1841-4). Moved to Cranbrook, Kent, 1856; senior member of the Cranbrook Colony of painters. Died Cranbrook 23 September 1886; his studio sale was at Christie's 21 May 1887.
LIT: Art Journal 1855, pp293-6, 1862, p138, 1866, pp40, 330, 1886
pp351-2 (obit); Athenaeum 2 October 1886, p439 (obit); The Times 24 September 1886 (obit); DNB
Contrary Winds
FA223 Neg 69019
Panel, mahogany, 37.3 X 57.1 cm (14 11/16 × 22 ½ ins)
Signed and dated 'T Webster./1843' br
Sheepshanks Gift 1857
Exhibited at the BI in 1844, and presumably bought there by John Sheepshanks. The Athenaeum critic thought Webster:
Not in his best school-boy vein this year ... the pigmy size of the figures in proportion to the canvas is carried to a point at which dreariness is the consequence. Nor are the urchins who are playing the game of Aeolus [who was God of the winds in Greek mythology] versus Auster as keenly in earnest as such small people would soon become. The ancient dame, too, on the other side of the picture, is a figure that merely fills so much space without any adequate occupation.
The Art Union found it 'difficult to divine the material of this work from the title', and also criticised the composition: 'Apart, on the left, sits an admirably-painted grandmother, absorbed in her knitting, so much so that the main interest of the scene does not extend to her; indeed the work is thus, it is to be lamented, divided into two very charming little pictures'. The critic also comments that 'the old woman is equal to the best efforts of the best period of the Dutch school', and concludes 'The artist has offended somebody, for he who usually filled the post of honour is this year thrust down far below the eye; yet the picture has never been shown elsewhere: it is one of Webster's best productions, and ranks among the most attractive contributions to the gallery'. In a review of the Sheepshanks Gift in 1857, the Art Journal again admired the work, but thought 'the children with their ship-launch in the washing-tub disturb the depth and tranquillity of the other parts of the picture'. When the painting was shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, the Art Journal reported the critic of Le Moniteur, who noted 'a thousand pretty details, scrupulously studied ... the most exacting of Dutchmen could not hesitate a doubt against a batterie de cuisine so precise and so carefully polished up'.
EXH: BI 1844 (18); Exposition Universelle Paris 1855 (957, lent by Sheepshanks); International Exhibition Dublin 1865 (130); Victorian Narrative Paintings V&A Circulation exhibition 1961; Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo, 1967
ENGR: H Bourne for the Art Journal 1875 (facing p262)
LIT: Athenaeum 10 February 1844, p139; Art Union 1844, p57; 'French Criticism on English Art' Art Journal 1855, p297; Art Journal 1857, p240, 1875, p262; F T Palgrave Gems of English Art 1869, p96 (repr in colour); Sheepshanks Gallery; A Picture Gallery of British Art 1873, pp11-2 (repr): O Aubrat La Peinture de Genre en Angleterre ... Paris nd [1934], (repr pl xii )
Ronald Parkinson"
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Sheepshanks was a regular patron of this artist. This portrayal of a country cottage interior shows a children's game in progress. It is an idealised view of poverty and rural life in England, which the picture buying public would have enjoyed. [27/03/2003]
Production Note
dated 1843
Materials
Oil paint; Mahogany
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Childhood
Categories
British Galleries; Children & Childhood; Interiors; Paintings
Collection code
PDP
