拍品专文
These two paintings, identically framed, have been together since they were acquired from Mulready by a patron called Mrs Bacon, The Toy Seller in 1835, 'Now Jump' five years later. Examples of the artist's later style, they were untraced when Kathryn Moore Heleniak published her monograph on Mulready in 1980.
There are two other versions of The Toy Seller, one in the Sheepshanks Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Heleniak, cat. no.141, pl.103), the other in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (Heleniak, cat. no.172, col. pl.VIII). The Sheepshanks picture, a panel only slightly larger than ours, is dated 1835 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. The Dublin version, considerably larger and on canvas, was started about 1857, exhibited at the RA in 1862, but left unfinished at Mulready's death the following year.
In 'Now Jump', according to Heleniak, 'a child balances precariously on the top of a wall, encouraged by his mother to leap ... [into] her arms', this being a typically Mulreadian image of 'man's uncertain fate.' However, in a manuscript catalogue of the artist's paintings, probably compiled for Sir Henry Cole in connection with the Mulready exhibition at the Society of Arts in 1848 (National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum), the subject is mistakenly identified as a boy bathing, and a related drawing was exhibited under the title The Bather, or 'Now Jump' in Mulready's memorial exhibition at South Kensington in 1864 (no.209).
There are two other versions of The Toy Seller, one in the Sheepshanks Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Heleniak, cat. no.141, pl.103), the other in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (Heleniak, cat. no.172, col. pl.VIII). The Sheepshanks picture, a panel only slightly larger than ours, is dated 1835 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. The Dublin version, considerably larger and on canvas, was started about 1857, exhibited at the RA in 1862, but left unfinished at Mulready's death the following year.
In 'Now Jump', according to Heleniak, 'a child balances precariously on the top of a wall, encouraged by his mother to leap ... [into] her arms', this being a typically Mulreadian image of 'man's uncertain fate.' However, in a manuscript catalogue of the artist's paintings, probably compiled for Sir Henry Cole in connection with the Mulready exhibition at the Society of Arts in 1848 (National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum), the subject is mistakenly identified as a boy bathing, and a related drawing was exhibited under the title The Bather, or 'Now Jump' in Mulready's memorial exhibition at South Kensington in 1864 (no.209).