
Not on display
- Artist
- George Cruikshank 1792–1878
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2360 × 4060 mm
frame: 2815 × 4520 × 145 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by R.E. Lofft and friends 1869
- Reference
- N00795
Technique and condition
The painting support is a plain weave linen canvas with closely woven fine threads. Stamps on the reverse of the canvas show that the support was ready prepared and stretched by the Colourman's Winsor & Newton. The canvas has a thick glue-size layer and a single priming layer of lead white and chalk bound in oil. There is a second thin priming layer, probably applied by the artist. It is a very pale pink colour, consisting of lead white, chalk and a small amount of vermillion.
The technique for the painting is very straight forward. The images were initially drawn in pencil on the priming, which remains visible where the paint is thin. Over this there is a thin under- painting mainly in brown and and yellow-brown washes of oil paint. On top of this the images have been more clearly defined in thicker paint and colours that have brush markings in many places. The pigments identified are lead white, chrome yellow, vermillion, cobalt blue, Mars brown and reddish Mars brown. Impastoed highlights of white or tinted white have been generally applied with vigorous squiggles, dabs and blobs and are a distictive feature adding liveliness to the paint and composition.
During major conservation treatment (1999-2001) the support was repaired, strip-lined and loose lined and the original stretcher replaced with a new aluminium stretcher. A considerable layer of dirt and a discloured varnish layer was removed and the painting was revarnished with a synthetic varnish. Damages and losses were also repaired. Finally a frame was designed and made.
Christopher Holden
July 1999
You might like
-
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer A Dialogue at Waterloo
exhibited 1850 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Bacchus and Ariadne
exhibited 1840 -
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer Study of a Lion
c.1862 -
Robert Braithwaite Martineau The Last Day in the Old Home
1862 -
George Frederic Watts Eve Repentant
c.1865–97 -
Thomas Creswick The Ford
date not known -
George Frederic Watts Eustace Smith
c.1870–80 -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Beloved (‘The Bride’)
1865–6 -
Robert Braithwaite Martineau Picciola
1853 -
Frederic George Stephens The Proposal (The Marquis and Griselda)
c.1850 -
Alfred Clint Hampstead from the South-East
c.1852–5 -
Arthur Hughes The Woodman’s Child
1860 -
Richard Redgrave The Emigrant’s Last Sight of Home
1858 -
Simeon Solomon A Youth Relating Tales to Ladies
1870 -
Emily Mary Osborn Nameless and Friendless. “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, etc.” - Proverbs, x, 15
1857