Physical description
A view from John Sheepshanks's house at Blackheath, south London, showing fields trees and water.
Place of Origin
Blackheath, England (painted)
Date
1852 (painted)
Artist/maker
Mulready, born 1786 - died 1863 (painter (artist))
Materials and Techniques
oil on panel
Dimensions
Height: 13.5 in estimate, Width: 24 in estimate, Height: 56 cm frame dimensions, Width: 83.5 cm frame dimensions
Object history note
Painted for John Sheepshanks. Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857.
Descriptive line
Oil painting depicting 'Blackheath Park' by William Mulread. Great Britain, 1852.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 198
The following is the full text of the entry:
"MULREADY, William, RA (1786-1863)
Born Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, 1 April (not 30 as is sometimes recorded) 1786, son of a leather breeches maker and amateur draughtsman. Moved to Dublin 1797, London about 1799; encouraged by the Scottish painter John Graham and the sculptor Joseph Banks, entered RA Schools 1800 (won silver medal for drawing 1806). Pupil and assistant of John Varley, whose sister Elizabeth (also an artist) he married 1803 (separated 1810). Exhibited 78 works at the RA between 1804 and 1862, and five at the BI 1808-9 and 1826. Wide range of subjects in early years, including history and portraits, but by 1815 almost exclusively domestic subjects of precise detail and brilliant colour, and with Wilkie the most popular and admired artist in the genre. He noted his own goals as 'Story, Character, Expression, Beauty'. Elected ARA 1815, RA 1816. Many book illustrations; accomplished draughtsman, particularly perhaps of academic nude studies. Designed first penny postage envelope 1840. Elected member of many distinguished institutions at home and abroad. Died 7 July 1863; his studio sale was at Christie's 28-30 April 1864. His four sons Paul Augustus, William junior (see entry below), Michael (see entry above) and John were all trained as artists. Much manuscript and graphic material in National Art Library and V&A collections, also Tate Gallery.
LIT: F G Stephens Memorials ofWilliam Mulready RA 1890; A Rorimer Drawings by William Mulready V&A exhibition catalogue 1972; K Heleniak William Mulready 1980; M Pointon Mulready V&A exhibition book and catalogue 1986. (The three last all have full bibliographies)
The most comprehensive recent catalogue raisonée of Mulready's works, arranged in chronological order, has been compiled by Kathryn Moore Heleniak, in her book William Mulready 1980, which provides the basis for the following entries. Her numbers have been quoted, and a brief resume given of her listing of alternative versions and related drawings. Further reference should be made to both her book and to Marcia Pointon's catalogue Mulready which accompanied the exhibition of 1986 held at the V&A, National Gallery, Dublin and Ulster Museum, Belfast; to Heleniak for more detailed comments on related works and documentation and Pointon for social commentary and aesthetic analysis.
Blackheath Park
FA137 Neg X1902
Panel, (13 ½ × 24 ins)
Sheepshanks Gift 1857
A view from John Sheepshanks's house (from the gateway, according to Stephens) at Blackheath, south London, begun in 1832 and exhibited at the RA in 1852. Described as 'a refreshing green bit of nature' by the Athenaeum critic, and 'perfect of its kind' by The Examiner, it was not admired by the Art Journal: 'A Pre-Raffaellesque eccentricity we scarcely expected to see exhibited under this name. It is a small picture - very minute transcript from a locality of no pictorial quality, the work being simply valuable for its intensity of execution ... the water is a failure. The shaded portions on the right are charmingly felt, and on the left the lively green importunes the eye; but yet in the whole there is an attractive softness and sweetness of execution, which we presume is proposed as a lesson to those youths who "babble of green fields".'
There was more criticism following its exhibition in Paris in 1855: 'In landscape - strictly so called, Mr Mulready is not so fortunate. His "Blackheath Park" all dry and crude, reminds one of a large agate stone, on which a mockery of vegetable life is traced. There is neither greatness nor reality in it; it is cold, poor, and without scope'. A French critic, in Le Moniteur, reported in the Art Journal in 1855, thought the work 'recalls the prodigiously minute landscape of Buttura [that is, the French painter Eugene-Ferdinand Buttura 1812-1852], where even to the farthest distance one might count the leaves of the trees and the blades of grass. Here the infinite details of daguerrotype are transferred to the canvas, and the artist in his rich and varied creations should only consider this as a tour de force, useless to be renewed, although curious, and requiring for its completion talents of the first order. Let him remember that it is not nature as she is, but as she seems to be, that he is to present to us. That alone is Art'.
The highly finished and intricate detail contrasts with the broader treatment of Mulready's earlier landscapes. As Pointon observes, this may not necessarily be due to the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites around 1850:
J F Lewis, Francis Danby and Samuel Palmer were all painting in bright, if not strident colours before 1852. In the early 1850s, Linnell (to whose work the present painting is not dissimilar) was painting minutely detailed landscapes peopled with small-scale rustics and children.
A sketch in pen and sepia wash of the view from the window of Sheepshanks's house is also in the V&A collections (EI800-1910, repr. Lorimer plate 107).
EXH: RA 1852 (96); Exposition Universelle Paris, 1855 (890); William Mulready South Kensington Museum 1864 (98); William Mulready City of Bristol Art Gallery 1964; Victorian Painting Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo, 1967; Drawings by William Mulready V&A 1972 (107a); John Linnell and his Circle Colnaghi Gallery 1973 (129; William Mulready V&A 1986 (24)
Ronald Parkinson"
Exhibition History
William Mulready (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/01/1986-31/12/1986)
Royal Academy Annual Exhibition (Royal Academy of Arts 01/01/1852-31/12/1852)
Materials
Oil paint; Panel (wood)
Techniques
Painted (images)
Subjects depicted
Landscape; London; Sheepshanks, John
Categories
Paintings
Production Type
Unique
Collection code
PDP
