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

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

Victorian/Genre

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