Hand tinted albumen print, 1857
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Beeton
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Hubert von Herkomer - Emilia Francis, Lady Dilke
oil on canvas
1887
1397 x 1092mm
1840 - 1904 was the salaried art editor of the Academy from 1873 to 1888. Her second husband was the Liberal politician Sir Charles Dilke. Lady Dilke was president of the Woman's Trade Union League from 1886.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia,_Lady_Dilke
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Harris Museum Buys 19th Century "Puck" Painting
[The work depicts Puck, a central character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sitting on a toadstool while smaller fairy figures dance around him in moonlight. Signed and dated 1841, the painting is circular in shape set in an ornate gilt frame]
LONDON.- An important 19th century painting featuring Puck, the mischievous character from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, has been bought for the Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston.
Puck by Victorian artist Richard Dadd is a mysterious painting with a fascinating back story. On loan to the Harris since June 2009, the popular work was in danger of being sold by its owners, the Finnis Scott Foundation. The Harris has now successfully raised all the money required to buy it for its permament collections.
The work depicts Puck, a central character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sitting on a toadstool while smaller fairy figures dance around him in moonlight. Signed and dated 1841, the painting is circular in shape set in an ornate gilt frame.
Puck is a key example of Victorian fairy painting, an artistic trend which flourished between the 1840s – 1870s. Richard Dadd is the most famous of the fairy painters. However his career was curtailed when he began suffering from mental illness.
The Art Fund gave a grant towards the purchase alongside the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Friends of the Harris Museum & Art Gallery and a bequest from Mrs Dorothy Wade, administered by Arts Council England.
Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar said: “This striking, beautifully detailed painting is a wonderful example of the Victorian fascination for other-worldly scenes, and its dark and fascinating back story makes it even more interesting. The Preston connection makes the painting a particularly apt addition to the Harris Museum’s public collections and we’re delighted to have helped make the purchase possible.”
Puck was painted two years before Dadd’s descent into mental illness. The painting’s imagery has dark undertones, possibly alluding to the unrest that was to affect the artist’s life.
In 1843 Richard Dadd murdered his father after which he was incarcerated for life. He was held in ‘Bedlam’ asylum and later in Broadmoor, until his death in 1886.
A companion piece to Puck, called Titania Sleeping, is in the Louvre, Paris, and a later painting by Dadd, The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke, is in the Tate collection, London. Although Dadd is synonymous with the fairy painting genre, because of his illness, he only completed around twelve oil paintings on the subject, making Puck a very work.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Hard times: The Victorian artist who mastered the night but was overshadowed by debt
Today his oil paintings fetch up to £500,000 but a new exhibition reveals how Victorian master John Atkinson Grimshaw's artistic ambitions left him destitute.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378068/John-Atkinson-Grimshaw-The-Victorian-artist-mastered-night-shadowed-debt.html#ixzz1JyfpTwx5
Blog break
Phillip
Monday, April 18, 2011
George Elgar Hicks - "Tick, Tick, Tick"
"Tick, Tick, Tick" - a girl sitting on her mother's lap listening to her gold watch ticking, 1867
