Peek, Frean & Co's Biscuits London

Object Type
During the 1880s and early 1890s a number of leading manufacturers were using fine art as a source for their advertising campaigns. Biscuit manufacturers often decorated their smaller gift tins with images after such painters as Landseer, Walter Goodall and Gainsborough, as well as drawing on well-known art works in their designs for advertising posters. It is likely that posters such as this example were actually framed like paintings and hung inside the grocers' shops.

People
Thomas B. Kennington (1856-1916) was a well-known portrait and genre painter. He regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1880 and 1916. He particularly admired the contemporary French school of painting, a fact reflected in his interest in depicting the urban poor as well as in producing portraits and other works documenting the lives of the affluent. He also painted a number of images of children.

Design & Designing
This poster was derived from Kennington's painting The Toy Shop, of 1891. It is an adaptation of the main section of the painting, which actually showed the figures three-quarter length, looking at a toy shop window in a busy street. Besides the addition of lettering, the key details that were changed were: the replacement of the child sucking its thumb with a child eating a biscuit, the extension of the shop window, and the replacement of the toys with biscuit tins.

Subjects Depicted
Peek Freans was started by James Peek and George Hender Freans, who opened their first factory in Dockhead, London, in 1857. By 1861 they were exporting biscuits to Argentina, Australia, Egypt and India. At this time most biscuits were supplied to retailers in large tins and then sold loose. The labels were therefore for display in the shop, identifying the types of biscuit.