In Reserve - More Pictures From Our Collection

This exhibition complements that held at the Museum in winter and early spring 2017-18, titled ‘New Subjects. Modern Art Works From the Collection’. It comprises oil paintings, watercolours, and sketches. Some of these can be viewed on the ArtUK website, but the current display is an opportunity to view some of them directly.

While they are small in number the range is remarkable.

More paintings, and sculpture, again, featured on the ArtUK website https://artuk.org/visit/collection/eden-district-council-1967 are on permanent display in the Town Hall (staircase walls) and in Mansion House (the latter can be viewed by appointment with the Curator of the Museum).

Caption - painting of the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben behind a riverside scene at night.

Westminster by Moonlight

Alfred Augustus Glendening (fl. 1861-1903)

The subject is the Houses of Parliament and the River Thames by moonlight. It was previously attributed to Henry Pether (1828-1865) who specialised in moonlight scenes.

oil painting on canvas

PEQPM:PD1989.5This exhibition complemented one held at the museum in Winter 2017-18 - ‘New Subjects. Modern Art Works From the Collection’. It comprises oil paintings, watercolours, and sketches. The art works were displayed from September 2019-February 2020, here are the highlights.

Caption - A side view of a woman looking pensive, holding a skull

Lady Contemplating a Skull

Gaetano Gandolfi (1734-1802) - attributed to

Gaetano Gandolfi trained at the Academia Clementina in Bologna where he was recipient of several prizes for both figure drawing and sculpture. In a time of diminishing patronage for artists in Bologna, Gaetano flourished for almost five decades. He supplied private devotional pictures, monumental altarpieces and wall paintings for churches, frescoed decorations for palazzi, some portraits, and allegorical and historical paintings that were despatched as far as Moscow. In the 1760s the impact of Venice, and Tiepolo in particular, is noticeable in his frescoes such as those in the church of San Roco in Bologna. Gaetano's art perhaps reached its apex in 1775-80 in the huge canvas of The Marriage of Cana (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the cupola frescoes for Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna. He is now considered one of the greatest Italian artists of the eighteenth century, surpassed only by Tiepolo. In later years, even before he visited London in 1788, Gaetano's art became increasingly neo-classical and his study of a Lady Contemplating a Skull reflects this transition.

oil on canvas

PEQPM:PD1989.29

Caption - Two storks looking quite menacing, stood on a riverbed.

Two Adjutant Storks

Ernest Griset (1843-1907)

Griset was born in Boulogne, France, on 24 October 1843, and was brought to England as a child. The remainder of his life was passed chiefly in North London, close to the gardens of the Zoological Society. He was a regular visitor to the gardens and produced many brilliantly observant studies of the birds and animals there. Better known as an illustrator, he achieved particular recognition for his bizarre and slightly grotesque animal caricatures some of which appeared in ‘Punch’ magazine. This painting of adjutant storks (large Indian storks) was probably inspired by a visit to the Zoological Gardens and has a hint of this. The pair of birds look menacingly down into the water intent on making a meal of a passing fish. There is a peculiar cast in their eyes and we sense that were they human, the conclusion of some unsavoury political or criminal business would be imminent.

Caption - A woman in a red coat and straw hat, sat leaning on a table with a green cloth on it.

Miss Mabel Robinson

Attributed to Edward G Hobley ARCA (1866-1916)

The portrait is of a young woman wearing a straw hat, red coat and dark skirt against a background of beige and green. She is seated to the left of the canvas with her right arm resting on a smalll cloth-covered table. Beside her is a ceramic pot and a plant. A label attached to the painting shows it to have been framed by Reeds Ltd (of Penrith) and a pencilled inscription reads 'Per Morland Exchange, Maulds Meaburn, Mrs (or Miss) Robinson'. (The painting is unsigned but may be by the Penrith artist Edward Hobley (1866-1916), and the date is possibly c1908). After publicity in the local press seeking information about the identity of the sitter, a number of people recognised the young woman as Miss Mabel Robinson, a schoolteacher at Maulds Meaburn and Crosby Ravensworth Schools round the time of, or just before, the First World War. She later moved to Surrey where she was matron at a boarding school. She married a sea captain named Yearsley and died in Liverpool, but they had no childrenPEQPM:PD2009.1

oil on canvas

PEQPM:PD2009.1

Caption - Fishing boats pictured sailing in stormy weather

Fishing Vessels in a Choppy Sea

(follower of) Willem van de Velde (1633-1707).

oil painting on canvas

PEQPM:PD1989.8

Caption - Three men pictured, one man treating the patients wounded arm.

Surgeon Dressing a Wound

(attributed to) Adrian Brouwer (1605/6-38). Brouwer was born in Flanders and may have been a pupil of Frans Hals. He spent some time in Holland, thereby linking the Flemish and Dutch schools of genre painting.

oil painting on a wooden panel

PEQPM:PD1989.26

Caption - Five children huddled togther, three girls and the young boy towards the bottom of the painting.

The Family Band (The Hobley Family)

Edward G Hobley ARCA

Edward Hobley’s watercolour drawing of his five children Freda, Olga, Edward, George and Eva, was made not long before his death in 1916. The family lived in Brunswick Square, Penrith. Edward Hobley was art master at Penrith Grammar School. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1893 and 1898 specialising in rural subjects and his works are represented in collections including the Walker Art Gallery and the Shipley Art Gallery

watercolour painting

PEQPM:PD1993.2

Caption Geese fying over a rugged landscape

Canada Geese over Chesapeake Bay (dated 1937)

Reuben Ward Binks (1880-1950)

Watercolour painting

Ward Binks was born in Bolton and studied at Manchester Art School. A great lover of dogs, he became recognised as the leading artist of his day in canine portaiture, not only in this country but abroad. His talent attracted Royal notice and he painted for many members of the Royal Family, including Edward VII, Queen Alexandra, George V, Edward VII and George VI. Ward Binks was frequently invited to attend the Royal Shoots at Sandringham in order to sketch the sporting dogs at work. He also spent many months in the Punjab, painting for the Maharajah of Patiala, and paid several visits to the USA to fulfill commissions for prominent American families. He probably painted this watercolour during one of these American trips. It was bequeathed to Penrith Urban District Council in 1968 by Mrs Dorothy McGrigor Phillips of Temple Sowerby Manor (Acorn Bank). Ward Binks and his wife moved from London to The Cedars in Temple Sowerby at the beginning of the Second World War, and he died there in 1950.