Lot Essay
The picture was admired by F.G. Stephens, who wrote of it as follows in the Athenaeum: 'While Mr Stanfield seeks the grey east of England, the Holland coast, and stormy seas, Mr Hook enjoys the splendid colour of the west, the metal-riven and iron-stained rocks of Cornwall, rippling or sleeping summer seas, and the verdurous, but treeless, headlands of the southern Channel ... Milk for the Schooner shows us the sea-margin such as Mr Hook has so often painted. A party has landed to obtain milk; the proprietor of certain goats is receiving money from the person in command; some hold the goat down by the head and legs. Behind is a hovel, broken rocks, ragged edges of cliffs; in from the sandy shore or beach, a boat on its margin. The sky in this picture is unusually effective for Mr Hook's work ... It is needless to say more of these pictures than that they might have come from the hands of some great old master, the landscape Titian of his time.'
In comparing Hook to the Old Masters, in particular Titian, Stephens was no doubt thinking of the artist's early work, which had been overtly Venetian in subject matter and style, the result of a visit to Venice in 1848 on the strength of an RA travelling scholarship. An example of this early manner, Othello's First Suspicion (1849), appeared in these Rooms on 13 November 1992, lot 113; another, The Defeat of Shylock (1850), is in the Manchester City Art Gallery. Although Hook abandoned these historical themes for his familiar coastal scenes, the influence of Venetian art lived on in his sense of light and colour and confident handling of paint.
Alexander Henderson, Lord Faringdon, who owned the picture in 1889, formed an important collection of modern pictures, many of which can still be seen at his country seat, Buscot Park, near Lechlade (National Trust). His most famous acquisition was Burne-Jones's Briar Rose series, which he installed in the saloon at Buscot, and he and his family were also staunch patrons of J.W. Waterhouse. Waterhouse's Ophelia of 1894, which has a Henderson provenance, was sold in these Rooms on 11 June 1993, lot 110.
In comparing Hook to the Old Masters, in particular Titian, Stephens was no doubt thinking of the artist's early work, which had been overtly Venetian in subject matter and style, the result of a visit to Venice in 1848 on the strength of an RA travelling scholarship. An example of this early manner, Othello's First Suspicion (1849), appeared in these Rooms on 13 November 1992, lot 113; another, The Defeat of Shylock (1850), is in the Manchester City Art Gallery. Although Hook abandoned these historical themes for his familiar coastal scenes, the influence of Venetian art lived on in his sense of light and colour and confident handling of paint.
Alexander Henderson, Lord Faringdon, who owned the picture in 1889, formed an important collection of modern pictures, many of which can still be seen at his country seat, Buscot Park, near Lechlade (National Trust). His most famous acquisition was Burne-Jones's Briar Rose series, which he installed in the saloon at Buscot, and he and his family were also staunch patrons of J.W. Waterhouse. Waterhouse's Ophelia of 1894, which has a Henderson provenance, was sold in these Rooms on 11 June 1993, lot 110.