Paintings

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.

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.

Ruysch was one of the most celebrated artists of the Dutch Golden Age and appointed court painter. Her scientific knowledge of flowers was learnt from her father, a professor of botany. This painting is typical of Ruysch’s meticulous detail set against a dark background.  However, she only completed about 100 paintings herself and her work was often copied.

This remarkable artist also had 10 children with her husband, portrait painter Juriaen Pool.

John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds in 1836. He had no formal art education, but most likely learned to paint through visiting galleries. He had his first exhibition in Leeds in 1862.

Grimshaw began by painting nature scenes but his repertoire soon expanded to cover fashionable women, scenes from ancient Greece and Rome and townscapes.  However, he is most famous for his moonlight scenes.

Olsson is one of only a few artists who specialised in pure sea painting, in particular twilight and moonlight scenes. He was born in London but moved to St Ives, Cornwall in 1888. Olsson described sea painting as one of the most difficult subjects for a painter.

‘For one whose heart draws him to the sea, in the first place must have an exceptionally retentive memory, and be able to grasp in a few moments the effect of the ever-changing movements of the sea and sky; he must have a delicate and subtle sense of colour, and have the ability to place the main features of his impression on the subject of the subject on the canvas with a few strokes of the brush, and beside this, he must be prepared to face a brave fight with the elements, which will frequently be against him.’

Julius Olsson, 1934

Miles Standish (1584-1686) was the Captain of the settlement of Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts, USA.  The story depicted here appears in a long poem of 1858 written by the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

According to Longfellow, Standish asks his friend, John Alden, to woo Priscilla on his behalf.  Alden, although in love with the girl, agrees out of duty to his friend.  Priscilla, unimpressed that he will not pay court for himself, rejects Standish.  Furious at this and believing himself to have been betrayed by Alden, he leaves for war against the ‘Indians’.  In his absence, Alden and Priscilla fall in love and, hearing of Standish’s death, they decide to marry.  This news proves to be false, however, and the Captain returns to attend the wedding and beg forgiveness for his anger.  The three are then reunited as friends.  The villagers crowd round Standish, overjoyed at his safe return and eager to hear of his adventures.  Meanwhile, Alden leads his bride from the ceremony through the Massachusetts woods, riding upon his ‘snow–white bull’.

Frans Snyders was a Flemish artist, born in the city of Antwerp, now in modern Belgium.  He specialised in still-life paintings of fruit and game, occasionally working in collaboration with other artists.

Around 1615 Sydners was commissioned to paint a group of paintings known as The Four Markets – which now hand in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.  Snyders’ Fruit Stall resembles the Harris’s closely and, for many years, our picture was thought to be a copy.  However, the differences are significant enough for it now to be considered an independent work by an artist influenced by Snyders, possibly even trained within his workshop.  It certainly dates from well after 1615, the clothing of the two women suggesting the 1640s.

The prominence of the building on the right (which is most likelt a guild hall for butchers) suggests that this painting may have been commissioned for that building.