Studies of a Farmer and his Family
Studies of a Farmer and his Family
Studies of a Farmer and his Familyinscribed lower left: Boy climbing and further inscribed in artist's shorthandWatercolour and pencil28.1 by 21.2 cm., 11 by 8 ¼ in.Provenance:Thomas or John Garle, friends of the artist;By descent to Mrs Lavinia Garle;With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, by 1970;Anonymous sale, Christie's, 14th July 1970This is a typical example of Hills's sketches of farmhands which often include multiple studies on the same sheet. However his depiction of rosy-cheeked, well-fed children in clean well-made clothing, and cheery behatted farmers on horseback, does not show the realities of the time. The politician William Cobbett (1763-1835) writes of the poverty of the British countryside in the 1820s and suggests people should `go into the villages and look at the miserable shed in which the labourers reside…. survey the rags on the backs of the wretched inhabitants' (quoted in R.J. Evans, The Victorian age: 1815-1914, 1968, p.3). There are a number of related sketches in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge which were the subject of a 2008 exhibition (see Nicola Gauld, `The fields calls me to labour - Watercolours of nineteenth century rural Britain by Robert Hills and his contemporaries, exhibition booklet, 2008, nos. 36, 40 and 42, ill.).){kind=link}
Robert Hills (1769-1844)
Studies of a Farmer and his Family
inscribed lower left: Boy climbing and further inscribed in artist's shorthand
Watercolour and pencil
28.1 by 21.2 cm., 11 by 8 ¼ in.
Provenance:
Thomas or John Garle, friends of the artist;
By descent to Mrs Lavinia Garle;
With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, by 1970;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, 14th July 1970
This is a typical example of Hills's sketches of farmhands which often include multiple studies on the same sheet. However his depiction of rosy-cheeked, well-fed children in clean well-made clothing, and cheery behatted farmers on horseback, does not show the realities of the time. The politician William Cobbett (1763-1835) writes of the poverty of the British countryside in the 1820s and suggests people should `go into the villages and look at the miserable shed in which the labourers reside…. survey the rags on the backs of the wretched inhabitants' (quoted in R.J. Evans, The Victorian age: 1815-1914, 1968, p.3). There are a number of related sketches in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge which were the subject of a 2008 exhibition (see Nicola Gauld, `The fields calls me to labour - Watercolours of nineteenth century rural Britain by Robert Hills and his contemporaries, exhibition booklet, 2008, nos. 36, 40 and 42, ill.).