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Lot Essay
This painting, which is one of Elsley's most humourous compositions, has been unseen in public since it was purchased from Frost & Reed at the turn of the last century, by the great grandmother of the present owner. Its conception was described by Rudoph de Cordova, in 'The Children's Season', published in The London Magazine of December 1904.
'Full Inside, which depicts two merry little children in a barrel into which several dogs are trying to force an entrance, was suggested to Mr. Elsley one sunny morning as he walked through a street and saw an empty barrel lying on its side on the pavement. At once his fancy pictured it with its two merry occupants, and he translated the sunshine into rain, not only because it offered a distinct and definitive reason for the children being in the barrel, but because the dogs would appear much more miserable, and would therefore afford a higher and more dramatic contrast with the laughter of the little ones, while the wet pavement, reflecting the shadows, would give a more effective foreground'.
The small boy and girl in the picture also appear in The Punch and Judy Show, Elsley's tour de force, which was sold at Christie's London on 4 November 1999, lot 26, for £716,500, a world record price for the artist at auction. The girl (seen in the brown dress in The Punch and Judy Show) is the artist's daughter Marjorie, while Elsley also used barrels in his compositions Weatherbound (1898) and Breaking Them In (1895).
Born in 1860, the son of a coachman, Elsley joined the South Kensington School of Art at the age of fourteen. In 1876 he became a probationer at the Royal Academy Schools, and submitted his first exhibit to the Royal Academy in 1878. By 1887 he was sharing a studio at 151 Gloucester Road, Kensington, with George Greville Manton, who later introduced Elsley to Fred Morgan. Elsley was to paint the animals in Morgan's pictures in succession to Allen Sealey, and following the death of Charles Burton Barber in 1894, was considered the foremost painter of animals and children in the country. In 1900, following an estrangement with Morgan who accused him of stealing ideas for pictures, Elsley started to execute works on a grander scale. He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1917, but thereafter painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight.
'Full Inside, which depicts two merry little children in a barrel into which several dogs are trying to force an entrance, was suggested to Mr. Elsley one sunny morning as he walked through a street and saw an empty barrel lying on its side on the pavement. At once his fancy pictured it with its two merry occupants, and he translated the sunshine into rain, not only because it offered a distinct and definitive reason for the children being in the barrel, but because the dogs would appear much more miserable, and would therefore afford a higher and more dramatic contrast with the laughter of the little ones, while the wet pavement, reflecting the shadows, would give a more effective foreground'.
The small boy and girl in the picture also appear in The Punch and Judy Show, Elsley's tour de force, which was sold at Christie's London on 4 November 1999, lot 26, for £716,500, a world record price for the artist at auction. The girl (seen in the brown dress in The Punch and Judy Show) is the artist's daughter Marjorie, while Elsley also used barrels in his compositions Weatherbound (1898) and Breaking Them In (1895).
Born in 1860, the son of a coachman, Elsley joined the South Kensington School of Art at the age of fourteen. In 1876 he became a probationer at the Royal Academy Schools, and submitted his first exhibit to the Royal Academy in 1878. By 1887 he was sharing a studio at 151 Gloucester Road, Kensington, with George Greville Manton, who later introduced Elsley to Fred Morgan. Elsley was to paint the animals in Morgan's pictures in succession to Allen Sealey, and following the death of Charles Burton Barber in 1894, was considered the foremost painter of animals and children in the country. In 1900, following an estrangement with Morgan who accused him of stealing ideas for pictures, Elsley started to execute works on a grander scale. He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1917, but thereafter painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight. painted less and less owing to failing eyesight.