Lot Essay
Chapman was a London-based painter of genre scenes, literary and historical subjects, still-life and birds. He was also an engraver, his plates including reproductions after Hoppner and Reynolds. He exhibited widely during the fifty-year period 1853-1903, mainly at Suffolk Street (112 exhibits) but also at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the New Watercolour Society. His picture Little Nell and her Grandfather (RA 1888) is illustrated in Christopher Wood's Dictionary of Victorian Painters (1st. ed., 1971, p.232; 2nd. ed., 1978, p.568), and a closely related subject, The Old Curiosity Shop, was sold in these Rooms on 19 December 1991, lot 181.
The present example is described by Ronald Parkinson (loc.cit.) as 'an adaptation' of Thomas Webster's picture A Village Choir in the Sheepshanks Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The general conception and composition are similar, and many of the figures, including the choirmaster, the group of three children in the lower left corner, the man leaning forward behind them, and the clarinettist in the back row, appear in both pictures. Webster's Village Choir, probably the best-known work of this leading member of the Cranbrook Colony, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847 and enjoyed great popularity. It was highly praised by critics at the time, both in England and France, and Webster painted a number of versions and replicas, one of which was engraved in the Art Journal in 1867. The original picture was given by John Sheepshanks to the South Kensington Museum in 1857.
Chapman's 'adaptation' was probably made shortly after this; the costumes, particularly those of the women, point to a date in the late 1850s or ealy 1860s, and the 'full frontal' composition is closely matched in the artist's two paintings of A Private Box, Drury Lane, 1857 and The Gallery, Drury Lane, 1857 which were sold in these Rooms on 22 March 1985, lot 60 (repr. Christopher Wood, Victorian Panorama, 1976, p.197, figs. 210, 211).
It is possible that Chapman knew the graphic account of a village choir in The Sketch Book by Washington Irving (published 1820), which was the inspiration for Webster's picture. Ronald Parkinson also draws attention to later treatments of the theme of parish church music in Thomas Hardy's novels Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and The Return of the Native (1878).
The inscription 'Psalm XIX. Verses 3-10-14' on our picture (lower centre) is probably only of general relevance, as an appropriate text for a scene of choral worship. The verses are as follows: 'There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard ... More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb ... Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.'
The present example is described by Ronald Parkinson (loc.cit.) as 'an adaptation' of Thomas Webster's picture A Village Choir in the Sheepshanks Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The general conception and composition are similar, and many of the figures, including the choirmaster, the group of three children in the lower left corner, the man leaning forward behind them, and the clarinettist in the back row, appear in both pictures. Webster's Village Choir, probably the best-known work of this leading member of the Cranbrook Colony, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847 and enjoyed great popularity. It was highly praised by critics at the time, both in England and France, and Webster painted a number of versions and replicas, one of which was engraved in the Art Journal in 1867. The original picture was given by John Sheepshanks to the South Kensington Museum in 1857.
Chapman's 'adaptation' was probably made shortly after this; the costumes, particularly those of the women, point to a date in the late 1850s or ealy 1860s, and the 'full frontal' composition is closely matched in the artist's two paintings of A Private Box, Drury Lane, 1857 and The Gallery, Drury Lane, 1857 which were sold in these Rooms on 22 March 1985, lot 60 (repr. Christopher Wood, Victorian Panorama, 1976, p.197, figs. 210, 211).
It is possible that Chapman knew the graphic account of a village choir in The Sketch Book by Washington Irving (published 1820), which was the inspiration for Webster's picture. Ronald Parkinson also draws attention to later treatments of the theme of parish church music in Thomas Hardy's novels Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and The Return of the Native (1878).
The inscription 'Psalm XIX. Verses 3-10-14' on our picture (lower centre) is probably only of general relevance, as an appropriate text for a scene of choral worship. The verses are as follows: 'There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard ... More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb ... Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.'