John Robertson Reid

Toil and Pleasure

1879

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In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1840

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Artist: John Robertson Reid 1851–1926
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 991 × 1822 mm
frame: 1405 × 2230 × 160 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1879
Reference: N01600

Display caption

Toil and Pleasure shows a rural community that is divided by wealth and social class. This inequality is demonstrated between those who work on the land
and those that use it for leisure. In the foreground, workers are shown harvesting turnips. However, they are presented in an idealised way. Their clothes appear untouched by their hard work. In the background, members of a hunt, a popular leisure activity among the wealthy upper classes at the time, ride across the field.

Gallery label, April 2019

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Catalogue entry

N01600 TOIL AND PLEASURE 1879

Inscr. ‘John R. Reid 79.’ b.l.
Canvas, 39×71 3/4 (99×182).
Chantrey Purchase from the artist 1879.
Exh: R.A., 1879 (540).
Lit: J. B. Manson, The Tate Gallery, 1929, p.121 and repr. p.122.
Repr: Sir Edward J. Poynter, The National Gallery, III, 1900, p.229.

Painted at Ashington in Sussex.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II