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Lot Essay
William Lock the Younger was educated at William Gilpin’s preparatory school in Cheam, near the family home at Norbury Park, near Mickleham, Surrey, where he received his earliest drawing lessons. His father was a collector and patron, also called William Lock (1732-1810), who had spent part of his Grand Tour travelling with Richard Wilson, and who was great friends with Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) and John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823), whose collection formed the basis of the National Gallery. Lock the Younger became a pupil and, like his father, a friend of Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), who dedicated his lectures on painting to him, and described the young man’s drawings as ‘unrivaled by any man of this day...for invention, taste and spirit.’
His work is very much inspired by Fuseli, taking dramatic scenes from mythology and literature, and depicting them in a strongly graphic, mannered style, similar to other artists in Fuseli’s circle, such as Prince Hoare and James Jefferies.
How Sleep the Brave: The Fallen Warrior comes from William Collins’ 1746 ode to those who died in battle, particularly in the 1745-6 Jacobite uprising:
‘How sleeps the brave, who sinks to rest, By all his country's wishes bless'd; When Spring with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck his hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod, Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands his knell is rung; By forms unseen his dirge is sung; There Honour comes as pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps his clay And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there.’
His work is very much inspired by Fuseli, taking dramatic scenes from mythology and literature, and depicting them in a strongly graphic, mannered style, similar to other artists in Fuseli’s circle, such as Prince Hoare and James Jefferies.
How Sleep the Brave: The Fallen Warrior comes from William Collins’ 1746 ode to those who died in battle, particularly in the 1745-6 Jacobite uprising:
‘How sleeps the brave, who sinks to rest, By all his country's wishes bless'd; When Spring with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck his hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod, Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands his knell is rung; By forms unseen his dirge is sung; There Honour comes as pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps his clay And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there.’