Lot 101: Charles Gregory, R.W.S. (1850-1920)

Burdens signed with monogram and dated '81' (lower right) oil on canvas 651/2 x 441/4 in. (166.4 x 112.4 cm.) LITERATURE H. Blackburn (ed.), Academy Notes, 1881, p. 45 (illustrated). Magazine of Art, 1884, pp. 196-198 (illustrated with a full-page engraving). EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1881, no. 394. NOTES Charles Gregory made an engraving after Burdens for the Magazine of Art in 1884, three years after it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. The critic accompanied this with a description of the picture The work is one which appeals to the emotional rather than the intellectual side of human nature. Yet there is thought in the composition and grouping, and plenty of technical skill is manifest in certain of the details. The hamlet, set in part on far-away slopes, crowned with thick woods, round and about which a flight of birds go circling to their rest, is a pleasant and peaceful place in which to linger. So think the troup on the stone steps leading down from the bridge to the stream below - the three poor wanderers, of different ages, of 'respectable antecedents,' in various attitudes of repose. Taking stock of them from the bridge behind is another group, made up of elements religious and civil. There is the vicar, a pleasant gentleman of the old school; there is the vicar's daughter, a round-faced, ingenuous, 'Wakefieldish' looking young creature in a small poke-bonnet, who is turning a pitiful face on the wanderers; and, listening to the vicar's mild words, but keeping a baleful eye on the three strangers, the village beadle, in correct uniform, handles his wand of office, and indulges in a rather bullying and very British expression, complicated, let us hope, with a touch of rough tenderness. Over the bridge go the big wains and their teams of stately, sturdy horses. The beadle is the man in the blue uniform, a parish officer whose duties included keeping order in church and keeping vagrants off the streets and putting them into the workhouse. Their role was immortalised by Charles Dickens in his novel Oliver Twist which had been published in 1837-8. Oliver Twist is the name given to a child of unknown parentage born in a workhouse and brought up under the cruel conditions to which pauper children were formerly exposed, the tyrant at whose hands he especially suffers being Bumble, the parish beadle. At the end of the drama, the offending characters are all eventually thwarted and brought to justice, including Bumble who ends his career in the workhouse over which he formerly ruled. The threatening glance that the beadle in this picture appears to be giving to the three girls on the steps implies the sinister consideration of removing them from the streets and entering them into the workhouse. The strained expression on the eldest girl's face would seem to indicate her awareness of their predicament and her inability to prevent their inevitable confinement. However, as the critic in the Magazine of Art commented 'Perhaps it may all end as things end in 'nice' books, and the good parson will add these new burdens to his own family party.' A comparable painting by Gregory entitled Weal and Woe was engraved in the Art Journal in 1882 (p. 80) and similarly tackles a social realist subject of womens' plight. The Art Journal 's description of Gregory's ability to convincingly portray the contrasting emotions of a group of characters could equally be applied to our picture: 'The vicissitudes of human life, with all their intense and dramatic realism, are finely typified in this very able picture. The little child starting on her first voyage, with the emblem of hope and promise in her dimpled hand, has a fine antithesis in the aged labourer, worn with toil and the long burden of his many years, who will in so short a time take the last journey of all. The pretty young mother and her babes well express happiness and content, as they look with bright-eyed hope across the placid river to the paths beyond. The mother, happy in the possesion of her treasures, has a touch of sympathetic tenderness in her face, as not unconscious of the stricken one near her, who, like Rachel mourning for her children, will not be comforted. There is a fine touch of character in the stalwart boatman, whose youth and strength contrast so effectively with age and feebleness. In this work the artist has manifested with no uncertain hand his inventive faculty. The position of the boat enables him to bring his figures into excellent arrangement; the landscape is happily rendered, and the massing of the trees most successfully aids the general balance of the picture.' This picture was bought by the Liverpool Corporation.