Charles Henry Cook, Irish (1830-1905) "The Faction Fighter," O.O.C., depicting a Gentleman seated in top hat wearing waistcoat and jacket with shillelagh in one hand and mug in the other, signed lower right, approx. 34cms x 29cms (13" x 11") in ornate gilt frame. (1)
Charles Henry Cook (1830-1906) The Soldier's Sweetheart oil on canvas signed lower right h:50 w:35 cm. Provenance: Private Collection Charles Cook was born in Bandon, West Cork, and this work is typical of his subject matter - which was local country people. His portraits of farmers, labourers and musicians, at markets, in public houses, or like this one, out in the countryside, provide insights into traditional dress and rural pursuits. Most of his paintings show men so this portrayal of a young farmers daughter, her working apron tucked up around her waist to show off the petticoat below, was traditional and fashionable. A rare full-length portrait of a milkmaid passed through this saleroom in December 2013. The way this sitter holds a miniature male portrait, perhaps of a soldier, provides the romantic narrative so beloved of genre painters of the nineteenth century. Dr. Claudia Kinmonth, October 2017
COOK, Charles Henry, (UK, 1830-1906): Portrait of a Bearded Gentleman, Oil/Canvas, 36" x 27.75", monogramed lower right and dated 1868, framed, 43.5" x 37".
Charles Henry Cook (c.1830-c.1906) The Traveller at Rest oil on canvas signed lower left C.H. Cook h:61 w:41 cm. Provenance: Private Collection Within the field of Irish genre painting, such comparatively large portraits of working people are unusual. However, the majority of the surviving work of this artist to have come to light in the past few years, demonstrates this artist's particular interest in such rural figures. The work of Charles Henry Cook has only relatively recently begun to be properly appreciated, as his work has been rediscovered, restored and displayed. He was born in the west Cork town of Bandon and seems often to have worked around county Cork, before he moved to England and sent a picture to the Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy from Bath. This slightly rounded style of figure painting is characteristic of his other surviving social realist work. In common with other genre painters portraying Irish life during the second half of the nineteenth century (for example James Brenan & subsequently Howard Helmick), authenticity of detail was often combined with a narrative message. The seated man here is clearly from a rural background, he is well fed and clothed in what would have been considered a fashionable style for his class. The corduroy knee breeches buttoned loosely below the knee and his double breasted cut-away coat, although slightly ragged, yet clearly repaired and patched, were respectable, as was his upturned collar and red cravat. Many rural people were poorly dressed in the nineteenth century. Although those that could wore clothes they made themselves ('home-spuns' and hand knitted stockings such as shown here) there was a huge trade in second hand clothes. A story by William Carleton from the 1830's shows how working people lacked clothes. He describes how each week patches were sewn on to protect the sleeves from wear, and then removed temporarily the night before Mass. For many, shoes were a luxury, reserved for men working on the land or with stock, but whose womenfolk and children went barefoot. Here, Cook's subject gazes directly at the viewer, with a benevolent look. He seems to be waiting by the roadside as he smokes his clay pipe and takes his ease on a journey, as suggested by his stick which might be used to carry his bundle of possessions tied up on the ground with red cloth. The use of red to highlight areas of the composition, as well as the whole style with the sitter portraying warmth and charm, are typical of Cook's several other paintings of rural people. According to Strickland's Dictionary (of 1913) Cook also painted landscapes and he wrote that The Freeman's Journal 'expressed the opinion that he had great power and gave promise of a future'. Having lived in Sundays Well Avenue in Cork, with his widowed mother, he eventually moved to work in England by the 1870's. However this is unmistakably one of his Irish subjects. The background to this roadside scene, with its suggestion of the sea and a peninsula and misty hillsides behind, seem likely to be coastal West Cork, where many of his other Irish scenes were set. This painting compares strongly stylistically to some of Cook's others, in that it focuses on Irish rural life, like several that have sold through this gallery, for example a milkmaid, 'Little Peggy' (exhibited R.H.A. 1864), 'The Pig Market' and most recently this year 'Farmer's Portrait'. His best known and most accomplished yet to have come to light, shows thirteen people in a pub interior 'St Patrick's Day' (1867), and hangs in the collection of The National Library in Dublin. The latter was included in two major exhibitions of genre paintings, 'Whipping the Herring' (Crawford Gallery, Cork, 2006) and 'Rural Ireland the Inside Story' (Boston, 2012). Others titles that Cook exhibited during his lifetime in Dublin and Cork included for example 'The Invited Models' and 'High Life Below Stairs', and have yet to be traced. Dr Claudia Kinmonth MA(RCA) is author of Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993) & Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006). Claudia Kinmonth, March 2016
Charles Henry Cook (1830-1906) Portrait of an Irish Farmer oil on board signed lower right & dated 1871 h:25 w:20 cm. Provenance: Collection of Dr Jack Gibson late of St David's Castle, Naas, Co Kildare By Descent In the field of Irish art history, portraits of rural working people form a very small minority, yet Charles H. Cook was well known for his work in this area. Born in the prosperous west Cork market town of Bandon, he had an address in Sundays Well Avenue, Cork City and then moved to Bath in England. The idea of employing an artist to paint ones portrait was at that time a choice made mainly by the aristocracy. Cook didn't exhibit many paintings at Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy, but it is curious that the only title coinciding with the year this one is dated (1871), 'The Invited models', suggests that he painted people that he chose, rather than solely what was commissioned. His pictures are useful as windows onto how people dressed and behaved, because of his meticulous attention to realistic detail. Like other artists in Cork at that time, such as James Brenan and Howard Helmick, Cook combined such plausible contextual detail with the use of symbolism to produce narrative or conversation paintings, which the audience at that time were used to 'reading' and deciphering. Several other paintings by Cook demonstrate his fascination with rural life, and two fine examples passed through these auction rooms recently 'Little Peggy' (Lot 59, 2 Dec 2013) and 'The Pig Market' (Lot 74, 14 Sept. 2015). This small scale portrait shows a working farmer, who would then have been considered fashionably dressed for his class, with his green great-coat and red cravat. His slightly imperfect top hat has a clay pipe tucked into the red hatband, and symbolic of his work on the land, he holds the handle of what might be a spade or pick. The suggestion that he's a strong farmer rather than a poorer labourer, is made by the distinctive outline of the darkly finished carpenter's chair that he sits on, with its rounded crest rail. Hedge chairs or súgán chairs, which were commonly used in kitchens, looked more functional and cost less. Those people sufficiently affluent to possess a parlour (usually known as 'the room' or 'the west room') liked to furnish it with stylish chairs painted in imitation of fashionable mahogany. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the rural diet also aspired away from the brown soda bread cooked over the open hearth, and towards the commercially baked white bread, which this man holds symbolically in his hand. If one could afford bought bread, from the baker's van (whose high stepping horse cut quite a dash as it travelled through the countryside), it was considered infinitely preferable. White bread was what was offered to people of importance, such as the visiting priest or doctor, who was ushered into the parlour on arrival. So such symbolism indicates this man's success as a strong farmer. This portrait may perhaps have been commissioned by the sitter, as many studio photographs were beginning to be at that time, or possibly he was an 'invited model' to add to Cook's already established repertoire of portraits of rural working folk including pig dealers, musicians, and a milk maid, ('Little Peggy'). The best known and most richly narrative of these paintings hangs in the National Library of Ireland, 'St Patrick's Day' (Exhibited R.H.A., 1867). Dr Claudia Kinmonth MA(RCA) is author of Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), and Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale, 2006). Dr Claudia Kinmonth January 2016.
Cook, Charles J.Nudes in the nature. About 1910 to 1920. 10 silver gelatin prints respect. silver bromid gelatin prints. 9 of 10 signed on the supporting cardboard. - Partly mounted on support respect. mounted under passepartout. Partly with minimal mottling.Weibliche Akte in der Natur. Ca. 1910-1920. 10 Silbergelatine- und Bromsilbergelatineabzüge. Je ca 20 x 15 cm. 9 von 10 auf Unterlage signiert. - Teils auf Unterlage bzw. unter Passepartout montiert. Teils ausgesilbert.
Charles Henry Cook (c.1830-1906) The Pig Market oil on canvas signed indistinctively lower right h:61.50 w:51 cm. Provenance: Private Collection Charles Cook was a genre and figure painter whose paintings typically featured rural people around his native county Cork. Born in the West Cork town of Bandon, he exhibited work at Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy in the 1860's and '70's from an address in Patrick Street, Cork. One of those exhibition paintings 'Little Peggy' was identified and sold through this auction house recently, and the most accomplished of his known narrative paintings 'St Patrick's Day' is displayed in the collection of Dublin's National Library. He lived with his widowed mother in Cork before moving to Bath and subsequently he died in Scarborough. As more of his Irish socio-realist works become known, a pattern of subjects emerge featuring sympathetic images of musicians, emigrants, conscripts, romantic subjects and farm workers with at least three featuring pigs. For the poor classes of cottier whose cabin had little or no land, the possession of a pig and its potential market price once reared and fattened, contributed most crucially to the annual income. Often alluded to jovially as 'the gentleman who pays the rent' the pig's sale was critical to raise a large sum. Many accounts survive of the particular care that was needed when the piglets were born. The sow was commonly brought in to the kitchen to farrow (give birth), and someone had to stay up all night to safeguard the dozen or up to twenty piglets or bonhams during their first most vulnerable week of life. Intelligent and responsive as today's family dog, the beasts were easily house trained and would scratch to be let outside in the morning. When market day loomed, they might have to be driven several miles, and care was taken to prevent them becoming lame on the way, as a lame pig was hard to sell (and once it lay down, it was hard to persuade it to stand again). The sticks that Cook shows the men holding, were used to guide the beasts, by tapping their flanks as they trotted up the road. Stories survive of people departing before dawn for Bandon market and the sad parting between pig and owner at the point of sale, as such close proximity built up emotional ties. Cook's familiarity with the economic implications of such scenes, and his attention to details such as the súgán (twisted straw rope) that the seller uses as a lead on the animal's back leg, is evident here. The persuasive leaning stance of the seller, and the contemplation of the potential buyer and his companion, imply an impending sale. In the background, the completion of a similar deal, like the next scene in the play, has men shaking hands over another much larger pig's back, when some 'luck money' was typically returned after payment was paid. The narrative implies that a larger pig makes a swifter sale. Dressed up for the day, the men sport waistcoats under their caped top coats, tall felt Caroline hats and fashionably colourful cravats around stand-up shirt collars. Knee breeches over hand knit stockings and working boots often greased with butter rather than polished, was practical attire for small farmers, all closely observed in Cook's unmistakable style. Temporarily erected tents that sold food and drink and everything desirable for rural life augment the scene. Artists such as Francis Wheatley, Erskine Nicol and Samuel Watson had already made popular the intricacies of Irish fairs and markets in their paintings, by the time Cook painted this in the 1860's or 70's.
Charles Henry Cook, Irish, 1830-1906, o/c, 20' x 24', The Card Players, puncture at lower left with small area of missing, canvas, signed lower left, original gilt frame with some losses. He was born in Bandon Co. Cork. He painted portraits and scenes of Irish life and landscapes, he exhibited painting`s in the Royal Hibernian Academy. After many years practicing in Cork, he moved to England, where he died in Scarborough in 1906.
Charles Henry Cook (1830-1906) Little Peggy oil on canvas signed lower right & dated h:159 w:84 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, Cork Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, No. 220 in 1864 It is extremely unusual to find such a large, full length exhibition quality portrait, of a working woman. However, most of the surviving work of this artist demonstrates his particular focus on such rural figures. The work of Charles Henry Cook has only relatively recently begun to be properly appreciated, as his work has been rediscovered, restored and displayed. He was born in the west Cork town of Bandon and seems often to have worked around that area. This slightly rounded style of figure painting is characteristic of his other surviving social realist work. In common with other genre painters portraying Irish life during the nineteenth century (for example James Brenan & subsequently Howard Helmick), authenticity of detail was often combined with narrative messages. The influence of the earlier school of seventeenth century Dutch painters on their work is clear, with their backdrop of authentic rural interiors, and use of symbolism. According to Strickland's Dictionary (of 1913) Cook also painted landscapes and he wrote that The Freeman's Journal 'expressed the opinion that he had great power and gave promise of a future'. Having lived in Sundays Well Avenue in Cork, with his widowed mother, he eventually moved to work in England. However this is unmistakably one of his Irish subjects. The clothes of the young woman portrayed were typical of nineteenth century rural Ireland, where women spun and dyed their woollens at home, and made many of their own traditional working clothes. Her fringed shoulder shawl is held together at the front by a simple wooden pin. Red dye was made from Madder roots (Rubia tinctoria), and was often used to dye the women's skirts a fashionable red. Other dyes were made with lichen, briar or heather roots. Older women wore their red petticoats almost down to the ground, whereas younger women wore them shorter. It was customary for skirts or aprons to be gathered up around the waist, with the ends tucked into the waistband, and here she holds her green check apron that covers the front of her red petticoat. Cook shows a young milk maid, holding the wooden staved 'piggin' that is the symbolic tool of her trade, under her arm. Such vessels with their stable broad bases were convenient for milking into, and were often carried on a milkmaid's head as she walked. Some had a stone or wooden cover to keep the fresh milk clean. Coopers produced staved household vessels in all shapes and sizes, from the tiniest 'noggins' for dipping and drinking, to substantial dash churns for butter-making and barrels for salting fish or meat. Here he has chosen metal rather than wooden hoops to bind the tapered staves together. The single projecting stave, used as a handle, was typical, and often the whole thing was painted. In common with many other working rural Irish women and children as late as the mid twentieth century, she goes barefoot. If a family could afford shoes, they were most often worn by men, who had to deal with stock and worked mainly out of doors. The writer W.M. Thackeray, observing women walking to chapel in Skibbereen, county Cork, in the early nineteenth century, noted that they stopped to wash their feet before going in for the service barefoot. Other artists sketch them carrying their shoes, ready to put them on once they arrived. Many women wore special sole-less stockings, to protect their shins (rather than the soles of their feet), as they walked about the country side. So for working rural women, going barefoot was the norm, rather than a sign of dire poverty. Around her bare feet can be seen ferns and primroses. In common with another of Cook's largest paintings from the 1860's, he uses specific flowers symbolically, here to suggest early youth, or perhaps young love. That work entitled 'St Patrick's Day' (currently displayed in the National Library of Ireland) also uses the foreground to display symbolic flowers; so primroses, daisies and a red rose, convey messages about the image's central female character, in the painting's rich narrative. In the background a tower house surrounded by a ruined curtain wall is thought to depict Mallow Castle, with the arch of a bridge visible in the lower middle ground. Another smaller painting by Cook of a ragged roadside figure, incorporates a milestone inscribed with 'Cork 23 miles, Mallow 6', hinting that Cook worked in that vicinity. This painting has 'Cork' written below the signature, linking it to the titles he exhibited (before his move to Bath by 1871), from his address at 51 Patrick Street, Cork. He exhibited 4 titles at the RHA and at least 11 more were known to be lent to other Irish exhibitions. Those titles listed for sale were priced variously between £10 and £80. Traditionally large portraits were of the aristocracy, rather than of 'ordinary' working people. It is therefore unusual to find such an imposing oil painting of a working woman, of exhibition quality. The frame with its distinctive arched slip around the top, looks like it was originally made especially for the painting, and it's typical of frames made in Cork at that time. Lacking any surviving title or label on the reverse, it seems likely that this picture is the one entitled 'Little Peggy' as listed and exhibited at the RHA for the comparatively high price of £50, in 1864. If the painting was cleaned the date (its last figure remains somewhat indistinct), could probably be read with certainty and more detail would be revealed all over as well. The way the young woman has been painted, with such a distinctive and confident gaze, suggests a direct portrait of a specific individual, also in keeping with a title of that name. Dr Claudia Kinmonth MA(RCA) is author of Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993) & Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006). Dr. Claudia Kinmonth, November 2013
CHARLES HENRY COOK, (1830-1906) A Welcome Rest, Figures by a lake at the Edge of a Wood Killarney, O.O.C., signed and dated '80 lower right, bears older label verso, 30in (76cm)h x 41in (104cm)w. (1) Charles Henry Cook was born in Bandon Co. Cork, 1830. He painted portraits and scene's of Irish Life and landscapes, he exhibited painting's in the Royal Hibernian Academy. After many years practising in Cork, he moved to England, where he died in Scarborough in 1906.
Charles Henry Cook (1830 - 1906) "Irish Country Men chatting on a Rural Lane with Pig," signed, O.O.C., 24 1/2" x 30" (62cms x 76cms), in lacquered parcel gilt frame. (1) SEE ILLUSTRATION.
