Brown Gallery

Crib and Rosa

Copper 9.25 x 12.25 ins
Through John Scott's engraving of Cooper's original, this painting is one of the most reproduced and best known paintings of dogs from the period. Crib was by Mr Hall's Nimble and Rosa was the daughter of the Hon Berkely Craven's Old Bowler, out of Bollim's tulip eared bitch. Rosa was at one time referred to in the Bulldog Club's standard description as having the correct formation for a Bulldog of the time.
Usage:Q10-27

© The Kennel Club

Green Waters, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929)

Oil on canvas, Newlyn School, late 19th / early 20th century. A man sculling in a small boat. Henry Scott Tuke was born into a Quaker family in Lawrence Street, York. In 1859 the family moved to Falmouth, where his father Daniel Tuke , a physician, established a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age and some of his earliest drawings, aged four or five years old, were published in 1895. In 1875, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. Initially his father paid for his tuition but in 1877 Tuke won a scholarship, which allowed him to continue his training at the Slade and in Italy in 1880. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris where he met the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged him to paint en plein air (in the open air) a method of working that came to dominate his practice. While studying in France, Tuke decided to move to Newlyn, Cornwall where many of his Slade and Parisian friends had already formed the Newlyn School of painters. He received several lucrative commissions there, after exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London. In 1885, he returned to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. He became an established artist and was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. Tuke suffered a heart attack in 1928 and died in March 1929. In his will he left generous amounts of money to some of the men who, as boys, had been his models. Today he is remembered mainly for his oil paintings of young men, but in addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced as many portraits of sailing ships as he did human figures. He was a prolific artist, over 1,300 works are listed and more are still being discovered

© RIC

Black John of Tetcott, James Northcote (1746-1831)

Oil on canvas, English School. In 1784 Northcote painted the portrait of John Arscott (1718-1788) of Tetcott, Devon, and it is probable that he painted this portrait of Black John of Tetcott at same the time. Black John was under four foot in height and suffered from kyphosis, known at the time this portrait was painted as hunchback'. The descriptions of his life, spent in the service of John Arscott, record his success as a jester and his devotion to his master'. It was common for servants lives to be overlooked and trivialised by the households they worked for and for their histories to be re-written, ensuring that they had no voice of their own. For example, it was noted that "his role as jester included swallowing and retrieving strings of live mice and mumbling sparrows, removing their feathers with his teeth while the sparrow was in his mouth. He died of grief shortly after his master." There is no history of Black John's life (not even a record of his real name) that is not in relation to that of his master'. James Northcote was born in Plymouth, the son of a watchmaker and optician. He was apprenticed to his father's trade but showed a talent for art. In 1769 he left his father's work and set up as a portrait painter. He was admitted as a pupil into the studio and house of Sir Joshua Reynolds in London as a pupil and assistant between 1771 and 1776. He came to consider himself an authority on his master and in 1813, after Reynolds death, he published his posthumous Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds

© RIC