Lot 132: Jacob Thompson , 1806-1879 the course of true love never did run smooth oil on canvas

signed and dated l.r.: Jacob Thompson/ 1854 ; signed and inscribed on an old label attached to the stretcher: The course of true love never did run smooth/ Jacob Thompson. The Hermitage Hackthorpe/ nr Penrith Cumberland/ and 104 High Street Marylebone London oil on canvas

measurements note 91.5 by 71.5 cm.; 36 by 28 in.

Llewellynn Jewitt, The Life and Works of Jacob Thompson, London, 1882, pp.44-46;
Christopher Wood, The Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Woodbridge, 1978, illus. pl.740

Christie's, London, 11 July 1969, lot 50, where bought by Sir David Scott

Thompson's biographer Llewellynn Jewitt, described the painting as '... a charming bit of rural life... which is remarkable for the richness, beauty, and pre-Raphaelite truthfulness of nature of the bank of foliage, the foreground and the trees. Seated in a quiet nook by the rough bank or hedge-side are a couple of young lovers - she with a pleased but deeply thoughtful countenance, her "burn' o' sticks," which she has evidently been met carrying home, lying by her side, her right arm hanging listlessly down and grasping one of the sticks, her chin resting daintily on the tips of the fingers of her left hand; he, his "bonnet doffed" and cast on the ground, looking earnestly and pleadingly into the sweet face before, but partly averted from, him, holding out his right hand, the left the while clasping a branch he has unconsciously picked up. The attitude, expression, situation, and surroundings lead one to almost fancy one can hear the softly breathed and tremulously intoned vital question, "Lassie! Wil't be mine?" and see the intense expression of anxiety that awaits the maiden's answer.' (Llewellynn Jewitt, The Life and Works of Jacob Thompson, 1882, pp. 44-45) The Art Journal described the subject of the picture as '... an old story, true to its sentiment, and depicted so pleasantly as we might expect a disagreeable subject to be; for one does not like to see young lovers unhappy' (ibid Jewitt, p. 46)

Thompson was to paint the subject twice. The variant being a horizontal composition, known through an engraving, where the subject is dissipated by both the enlarged scale of the landscape and the inclusion of an old woman approaching a stile. Thompson seems to have intended to include her in this version, and traces of her can be discerned behind the couple, but she was removed. The horizontal version (Fig 1) remained unsold in the artist's studio and was seen there by Llewellynn Jewitt when he visited Thompson's widow.