Art

The children’s tea party, with its matching crockery and bright, white cloth, contrasts with their rather dreary surroundings.  In the corner, an elderly minder quietly sips her own tea.

Webster specialised in gentle, humorous scenes of everyday life, often featuring children. He lived in the village of Cranbrook in Kent alongside other artists who painted in a similar style.  They are known as ‘The Cranbrook Colony’.

Included in the painting are: Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, the Dauphin, Dauphiness, and Madam Elizabeth, the King’s Sister

During the French Revolution the Royal family was imprisoned in the Temple, a medieval fortress in Paris.  Trying to keep up appearances, Marie Antoinette mends the King’s coat whilst he sleeps.  The children and their aunt keep occupied while, through the doorway, jailers play cards and another peers at the family.

The King and Queen were executed in 1793. When this painting was shown in France it made people cry.

The River Nile burst its banks annually making villagers flee from the flooding. Eventually, the waters subsided and everybody could return home. Since the 1970s, the Aswan High Dam has helped to prevent these unpredictable surges.

Goodall travelled to Egypt in 1858 and 1870-1.  A major work like this was based on sketches made in Egypt but painted in Britain.  Goodall collected Egyptian artefacts to use as props back home, even sheep which he kept in his garden.

Hesperia is one of three sisters from Greek mythology called the Hesperides. They tended a beautiful garden where golden apples grew which gave immortality when eaten. Although she is supposed to be guarding them, Hesperia reaches out to steal an apple for herself. She is sometimes known as Erytheia, ‘the red one’.

Having fought in ‘the war to end all wars’, this First World War veteran sadly contemplates the onset of the Second World War.  Near him lies a new gas mask from Lewisham Council and a newspaper covering Chamberlain’s abortive mission to make peace with Hitler.

Spencelayh’s training as a miniaturist allowed him to build up a story of visual clues in painstaking detail.

The title of this sculpture is in Latin, it means ‘Glory to the Vanquished’. Mercié made the original in 1874 in response to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which France lost. This version is one of a number of casts made in the 1880s.

It shows a fallen warrior being carried to heaven by a winged female figure. Mercié probably drew his inspiration from the winged Greek goddess of victory, Nike.  Here Nike has been combined with the traditional image of an angel creating a sculpture with both Classical and Christian elements.

This scene depicts a Royal Court, where a Nubian ambassador – dressed in white – is entertained by a dancer and musicians. To his right sits the host, a priest called Phtames, a scribe to the god Ptah at Memphis.

The subject of this painting was suggested to the artist by a wall painting he saw during a visit to the British Museum in 1862.

Many of Alma-Tadema’s paintings offer a glimpse into the ancient past. He used historical sources and the most up-to-date archaeological findings when researching his paintings. The harp in the painting is drawn from an example he saw at the Louvre, in Paris, and the chairs from the British Museum.

Taken from the 137th psalm, this biblical scene depicts a group of Jewish captives mourning their exile from Jerusalem following the Babylonian conquest of the city.

Born in York, Etty was able to go to London and enter the Royal Academy Schools due to the financial support of his uncle. Inspired by artists like Rubens and Titian he specialised in painting nudes, and in doing so became one of the most controversial artists of the Victorian era.

Did this remarkable pub in a tree really exist? We are not sure. Devis may have copied the scene from a Dutch painting. The behaviour of some figures is bawdier than Devis usually depicted and more in keeping with the Dutch style.

Preston-born Devis was half-brother to the portrait painter Arthur. Anthony was a very successful landscape painter who settled in Surrey in 1780.  If the pub did exist, it may have been there.