Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans (1811-1888) was born in Lier, Holland and settled in Antwerp, Belgium in 1833, where he was a pupil of Gustave Wappers (1803-1874). He taught at the Academy of Antwerp where one of his pupils was the German painter Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) who however did not follow his obsessive concern for precision. Dyckmans worked for some time in London, where he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846, 1860, 1863 and 1869.
This painting is a typical example of Dyckmans' genre paintings that he executed during his several stays in London. It shows a classic high Victorian interior design with elegant furniture, chemically dyed carpet and sober wallpaper. It presents on the occasion of the grand-mother's birthday three generations of women. The grandmother is dressed in black and may therefore be a widow while the mother and the daughter display refined laced and satin dress in typical Victorian fashion. A small dog is resting on a footstall besides the grandmother, thus balancing the compositional scheme of the whole picture.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O18870/oil-painting-grandmothers-birthday-la-fete-de/
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