Lot 21: William H. Hopkins (fl. 1853, d. 1892) and Edmund Havell, junior (1819-1894)

William H. Hopkins (fl. 1853, d. 1892) and Edmund Havell, junior (1819-1894)
'When first I saw sweet Peggy': Irish peasants going to market
signed and dated 'W.H. Hopkins/E. Havell./1866' (lower right) and further signed 'W.H. Hopkins/& Emd Havell' (lower left), with inscription '"Des Paysans Irlandais allant au Marché"/Hopkins (William Henry) peintre des Animaux et de la Paysage Né a Londres, Angleterre/Havell (Edmund) peintre des personages - 6500 f' (on an old label on the reverse)
oil on canvas
27½ x 73 in. (69.8 x 185.7 cm.)

Possibly London, Royal Academy, 1864, no. 399, as 'The low-backed car'.

The picture is seen hanging on the wall in a photograph by Bedford, Lemere & Co. illustrated in James Taylor, Lord Jeffrey and Craigcrook: A History of the Castle, Edinburgh, 1892.

On the French art market at an early date (see label on reverse) and by 1892 at Craigcrook Castle, Edinburgh.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
The picture is the joint work of two artists who often collaborated on sporting subjects and scenes of rustic genre. William H. Hopkins, who was responsible for the landscape and animals, was a west-country artist, living at different times in Keynsham, Bristol and Bath. He exhibited in London for nearly forty years (1853-90), supporting the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. Horse portraits and hunting scenes were a speciality. Sally Mitchell describes him in her Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists (1985) as 'a very pleasing artist' whose horses were 'well observed (and) naturally and attractively painted.'

Edmund Havell, junior, was also known for his equestrian and hunting subjects, although he could turn his hand to portraiture and his contribution to the present picture seems to have been confined to the figures. Havell belonged to a large family of artists who came from Reading. His father, brothers, son and other relatives were all painters, although the best known of them is probably the landscape painter William Havell (1782-1857), who was his uncle.

Having studied under Benjamin Robert Haydon, Edmund Havell, junior, was based in Reading until 1845, when he moved to London. There he remained for the rest of his life, although a visit to the United States is recorded and in 1866 he lived briefly in Clifton, Bristol. This is interesting since William Hopkins had been living at Willsbridge, Bristol, since 1859, and 1866 is the date when our picture was painted (or just possibly re-worked, see below). However, as there are works both earlier and later than this on which they collaborated, the partnership cannot have depended entirely on their being neighbours at this period. They must often have met in London, where Havell, like Hopkins, was a regular exhibitor at the R.A., the British Institution, and Suffolk Street.

When first I saw sweet Peggy,
'Twas on a market day,
A low-backed car
She drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay;
But when that hay was blooming grass,
And decked with flowers of Spring,
No flow'r was there
That could compare
With the blooming girl I sing.

In the painting Peggy is seen on her 'low-backed car' among a group of Irish country folk taking their livestock to market. Her charms have clearly caught the attention not only of the young farmer walking with his pigs in the foreground but of a better-class man, perhaps the local squire, who rides his brown nag on the far side of the waggon. She sits, just as Lover describes her, on 'a truss of hay', surrounded by poultry and plucking a chicken. This bird's fate, the poet writes with ill-disguised sexual innuendo, invites the 'envy' of 'lovers (who) come from near and far' to admire her.