John Robertson Reid

Toil and Pleasure

1879

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Not on display

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

Display caption

In A Country Cricket Match, also displayed here, Robertson Reid showed a rural community as a social unit, playing or watching the village cricket match. Here the hierarchical structure of the rural community is shown as dramatically polarised, between those who work the land to live and those that use it for recreational purposes. The weary workers stand to one side as members of the hunt ride across the field. Ironically, it is the efforts of the poor, as represented by the land workers, which creates the wealth of the rich, as represented by the hunters.

Gallery label, February 2004

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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