拍品專文
This picture is an important rediscovery. Unrecorded since 1904 and described as 'lost' or 'untraced' in the recent literature, it has been known only from an old photograph in the Tate Gallery's archives. From this, as Kathryn Moore Heleniak observed, it seemed that the picture was 'seriously damaged', but in fact the condition is much better than was thought.
Idle Boys was greatly admired in its day. 'This fine picture, if we mistake not, will place Mulready nearly upon a level with Wilkie and Bird,' the New Monthly Magazine observed when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815. 'The attitude and expression of the boy who has just felt the ferule, are excellent; as is also that of the urchin who ... deserves and expects punishment. The figures in the background are not at all inferior.' The Examiner agreed. 'Idle Boys is honourable to Mr Mulready's exact observance and portraiture of incidental character. The stern resentment of a Schoolmaster, and the Schoolboy's pangs and diffused terror, are seen in every form and thrill in every nerve of the boys who are looking on, and the boy to whom the instructor is pointing out his cyphering blunder, after having inflicted the twinging strappado for which he is writhing. This writhing is poignantly marked in his twisted features and limbs. The down-dropping head and arm of his companion, who is about to shew his sum also, and the awful glances of the other boys, are the pictorial looking-glasses to juvenile emotions. A delicate touchiness and squareness of pencil, and a beautiful sunny effect, shine in this masterly work.'
Half a century later the Redgraves were still singing the picture's praises, as well as pointing out the important part it played in Mulready's career and making some interesting comments about its condition at that date. 'Idle Boys ... was sent to the Royal Academy in 1815, and was no doubt the cause of his being chosen as an associate at the election which took place in November. It is a perfect work for arrangement, strong action, expression, and suitable colour. The schoolmaster seated at his desk, to which he has summoned the two offenders, has a very characteristic head (the painter's father sat for it); his face is red and angry, his appearance that of one who would rule by fear rather than by love, and he has just administered a tingling blow on the palm to one of the urchins who has been detected playing in school hours. There is a slight change in the execution of this picture; in some places the ground is seen through a semi-solid painting, as in the coat of the boy who waits for punishment, the master's desk, and in parts of the background; true glazings also are adopted, as in the master's cap, the green breeches of the beaten boy, and the green back of the master's chair.'
As these accounts show, the picture exemplifies Mulready's ability to communicate a profound sense of unease, whether by means of thinly-veiled sexual symbolism or, as here, by introducing a more obvious note of sadism or cruelty. Painted when he was twenty-nine, it is one of his earliest genre scenes in his developed style, as well as the first of his schoolroom or playground subjects, anticipating The Fight Interrupted (Victoria and Albert Museum; Pointon, op.cit., pl.XVI), which is a year later and for which Mulready's father again modelled as the schoolmaster, and The Last In (Tate Gallery; Pointon, pl.XVII), which dates from 1835. Both Heleniak and Pointon stress the Dutch influence on the picture, Heleniak mentioning Jan Steen and Pointon, Ostade; and both discuss the picture's own influence on the childhood subjects which enjoyed such a vogue during the Victorian period. Pointon observes that Mulready's early treatment of a schoolroom scene had a much greater impact on such exponents of the genre as Thomas Webster and others than The Last In, painted twenty years later, in which the relationship between master and pupils is expressed in more subtle and complex terms.
The admiration which the picture has consistently commanded is reflected in its distinguished provenance and the number of exhibitions in which it has appeared. It was bought from the artist by Charles, second Earl Grey (1764-1845), the great Whig statesman under whose premiership were passed the Reform Bill (1832) and the abolition of slavery (1833). He was to commission a second childhood subject from Mulready, Lending a Bite (private collection; Pointon, pl.76), in 1818. Idle Boys then entered the enormous collection of Joseph Gillott of Birmingham, who had made a fortune manufacturing steel pens and patronised Turner, Etty, Linnell, Müller and others. In 1848 it was lent to the Mulready exhibition organised by the Society of Arts, and it appeared in another at the South Kensington Museum in 1864, the year after the artist's death. By this time it belonged to Henry McConnel of Cressbrook, Derbyshire, who also had a fine collection of modern, mostly English, pictures. His posthumous sale at Christie's in 1886 consisted of eighty lots and contained five works by Mulready. As well as our picture there was a pencil sketch for it, purchased at the artist's studio sale at Christie's in 1864.
At the McConnel sale the picture was bought by Agnew's, and it was doubtless from them that it was acquired by Thomas Woolner, R.A. (1825-1892), the sculptor and poet best known for the fact that he had been a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood when it was formed in 1848. Success as a maker of portrait busts and a contributor to public monuments enabled Woolner to turn to collecting in later life. In addition to our picture, which he lent to an exhibition of British art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888, he owned at least two more works by Mulready, The Bathers of 1848-9 (Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Heleniak, pl.148) and A Landscape. All three appeared at his sale at Christie's in 1895, together with works by Gainsborough, Wilson, Constable, Bonington, Landseer and other British masters. Idle Boys was again bought by Agnew's. The last collection in which it is recorded is that of Sir Charles Tennant (1823-1906), a rich industrialist, Liberal MP for the Partick division of Glasgow, and the father of the famous Margot Tennant, Lady Asquith, and her sisters. Once again it found itself in a major collection of British pictures. Tennant probably had it at his London house, 35 Grosvenor Square, from which it was lent to an exhibition in Glasgow in 1901 and the exhibition of Works by Irish Painters held at the Guildhall in London three years later.
A number of preparatory drawings for the picture are recorded, including two in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Heleniak reproduces one of these, a study for the chastised boy, as well as a lost composition drawing formerly in a private collection in Japan (op.cit., pls.84-5).
Idle Boys was greatly admired in its day. 'This fine picture, if we mistake not, will place Mulready nearly upon a level with Wilkie and Bird,' the New Monthly Magazine observed when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815. 'The attitude and expression of the boy who has just felt the ferule, are excellent; as is also that of the urchin who ... deserves and expects punishment. The figures in the background are not at all inferior.' The Examiner agreed. 'Idle Boys is honourable to Mr Mulready's exact observance and portraiture of incidental character. The stern resentment of a Schoolmaster, and the Schoolboy's pangs and diffused terror, are seen in every form and thrill in every nerve of the boys who are looking on, and the boy to whom the instructor is pointing out his cyphering blunder, after having inflicted the twinging strappado for which he is writhing. This writhing is poignantly marked in his twisted features and limbs. The down-dropping head and arm of his companion, who is about to shew his sum also, and the awful glances of the other boys, are the pictorial looking-glasses to juvenile emotions. A delicate touchiness and squareness of pencil, and a beautiful sunny effect, shine in this masterly work.'
Half a century later the Redgraves were still singing the picture's praises, as well as pointing out the important part it played in Mulready's career and making some interesting comments about its condition at that date. 'Idle Boys ... was sent to the Royal Academy in 1815, and was no doubt the cause of his being chosen as an associate at the election which took place in November. It is a perfect work for arrangement, strong action, expression, and suitable colour. The schoolmaster seated at his desk, to which he has summoned the two offenders, has a very characteristic head (the painter's father sat for it); his face is red and angry, his appearance that of one who would rule by fear rather than by love, and he has just administered a tingling blow on the palm to one of the urchins who has been detected playing in school hours. There is a slight change in the execution of this picture; in some places the ground is seen through a semi-solid painting, as in the coat of the boy who waits for punishment, the master's desk, and in parts of the background; true glazings also are adopted, as in the master's cap, the green breeches of the beaten boy, and the green back of the master's chair.'
As these accounts show, the picture exemplifies Mulready's ability to communicate a profound sense of unease, whether by means of thinly-veiled sexual symbolism or, as here, by introducing a more obvious note of sadism or cruelty. Painted when he was twenty-nine, it is one of his earliest genre scenes in his developed style, as well as the first of his schoolroom or playground subjects, anticipating The Fight Interrupted (Victoria and Albert Museum; Pointon, op.cit., pl.XVI), which is a year later and for which Mulready's father again modelled as the schoolmaster, and The Last In (Tate Gallery; Pointon, pl.XVII), which dates from 1835. Both Heleniak and Pointon stress the Dutch influence on the picture, Heleniak mentioning Jan Steen and Pointon, Ostade; and both discuss the picture's own influence on the childhood subjects which enjoyed such a vogue during the Victorian period. Pointon observes that Mulready's early treatment of a schoolroom scene had a much greater impact on such exponents of the genre as Thomas Webster and others than The Last In, painted twenty years later, in which the relationship between master and pupils is expressed in more subtle and complex terms.
The admiration which the picture has consistently commanded is reflected in its distinguished provenance and the number of exhibitions in which it has appeared. It was bought from the artist by Charles, second Earl Grey (1764-1845), the great Whig statesman under whose premiership were passed the Reform Bill (1832) and the abolition of slavery (1833). He was to commission a second childhood subject from Mulready, Lending a Bite (private collection; Pointon, pl.76), in 1818. Idle Boys then entered the enormous collection of Joseph Gillott of Birmingham, who had made a fortune manufacturing steel pens and patronised Turner, Etty, Linnell, Müller and others. In 1848 it was lent to the Mulready exhibition organised by the Society of Arts, and it appeared in another at the South Kensington Museum in 1864, the year after the artist's death. By this time it belonged to Henry McConnel of Cressbrook, Derbyshire, who also had a fine collection of modern, mostly English, pictures. His posthumous sale at Christie's in 1886 consisted of eighty lots and contained five works by Mulready. As well as our picture there was a pencil sketch for it, purchased at the artist's studio sale at Christie's in 1864.
At the McConnel sale the picture was bought by Agnew's, and it was doubtless from them that it was acquired by Thomas Woolner, R.A. (1825-1892), the sculptor and poet best known for the fact that he had been a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood when it was formed in 1848. Success as a maker of portrait busts and a contributor to public monuments enabled Woolner to turn to collecting in later life. In addition to our picture, which he lent to an exhibition of British art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888, he owned at least two more works by Mulready, The Bathers of 1848-9 (Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Heleniak, pl.148) and A Landscape. All three appeared at his sale at Christie's in 1895, together with works by Gainsborough, Wilson, Constable, Bonington, Landseer and other British masters. Idle Boys was again bought by Agnew's. The last collection in which it is recorded is that of Sir Charles Tennant (1823-1906), a rich industrialist, Liberal MP for the Partick division of Glasgow, and the father of the famous Margot Tennant, Lady Asquith, and her sisters. Once again it found itself in a major collection of British pictures. Tennant probably had it at his London house, 35 Grosvenor Square, from which it was lent to an exhibition in Glasgow in 1901 and the exhibition of Works by Irish Painters held at the Guildhall in London three years later.
A number of preparatory drawings for the picture are recorded, including two in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Heleniak reproduces one of these, a study for the chastised boy, as well as a lost composition drawing formerly in a private collection in Japan (op.cit., pls.84-5).