(Sir) Charles Lock Eastlake - The Salutation to the aged Friar

Price Realized £14,340

oil on canvas
37 x 44½ in. (94 x 113 cm.)

London, Royal Academy, 1840, no. 61.

Charles Lock Eastlake, who was to become one of the most powerful members of the British art establishment as President of the Royal Academy (succeeding Sir Martin Archer Shee in 1850), Keeper of the National Gallery (1843-7), and first Director of the National Gallery (from 1855), spent a considerable part of his early career in Italy. He first set off to Rome in 1816 in the the wake of the success of his life-size painting of Napoleon on Board the Bellepheron which he exhibited at the Royal Academy that year. He remained abroad, principally in Italy, visiting Naples and Southern Italy, but also visiting Greece and the Greek Islands, until he was obliged to return to England in December 1820 by the death of his father. However, he returned to Rome a few months later and then remained there until 1830, becoming a leading member of the community of British artists in the city.

Italy had a profound influence on Eastlake's art and the present picture, in its choice of subject, with figures inspired by everyday Italian life, reflects this. Eastlake had continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy while living in Italy and also showed works at the British Institution, his first Italian genre pictures appeared there in 1823 and 1825 respectively. His most popular and successful Italian genre picture, entitled Italian Scene in the Anno Santo, Pilgrims arriving in the Sight of Rome and St. Peter's: Evening, was shown at the Royal Academy in 1828 the year after his election as a member of the Academy. The present picture was one of only two that Eastlake exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, the other being a portrait, and it received much attention. The critic in the Art Union (op. cit.) commented:

This accomplished painter contributes but one picture. The Salutation of the aged Friar. It is of the very highest merit; exquisite in composition and admirable in execution. The grace & beauty of the fair girls of Italy, who 'salute' the aged friar, the boy who is about to kiss his hand, are points touching in the extreme; the production is one that cannot fail to produce pleasure; those who may not be able to appreciate its character as an example of art, will at all events, feel the sweet story it tells, and enjoy it as a refreshing transcript of true nature. It is, on the whole, the favourite of the year; it is impossible for language to overpraise it.

While Thackeray (op. cit.) wrote that:

Mr. Eastlake's picture ... is as pure as a Sabbath-hymn sung by the voices of children ... There is no affectation of middle-age mannerism, such as silly Germans and silly Frenchmen are wont to call Catholic Art; and the picture is truly Catholic in consequence, having about it what the hymn calls 'solemn mirth', and giving the spectator the utmost possible pleasure in viewing it' concluding that it 'brings the spectator to a delightful peaceful state of mind, and gives him matter to ponder upon long after.

While H.F. Chorley wrote in the Athenaeum [after commenting upon Biard's The Slave Trade] that Eastlake's picture 'steals into the mind like a hymn of thanksgiving after the riot of a demons's sabbath'. Sir Francis Graham Moon (1796-1871), in whose possession this picture is first recorded, was a leading London print-publisher and was also Lord Mayor of London (1854-5), after which he was created a baronet.