The quotations at the head of each section are taken from Graves' list of Royal Academy exhibitors, and represent the inspiration for the painting, as submitted to the Academy's catalogue by Eyre Crowe.
Title: Old Porch, Evesham (1883)
Medium: oil
Size: 20 x 29 inches
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1883
Athenaeum, 2 June 1883:
Mr. Eyre Crowe's Old Porch, Evesham (11), a study, with figures, of the well-known entrance to the church at Evesham, can boast of careful and solid painting of the Gothic stonework, and is rather richer in tone than is usual with Mr. Crowe; but it is deficient in brilliancy and clearness, qualities essential to architecture in sunlight.
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This painting was offered for auction at Gorringe's in Lewes, East Sussex, under the title Maids beside a church doorway, on 22 July 2004, with an estimated price of £800-£1200, but was not sold. It was offered again by the same auction house on 7 September 2004, and sold for £280.
Title: Market Place, Evesham (1883)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1883
A companion piece to 'Old Porch, Evesham', this painting was not noted in any of the principal newspapers or periodicals on its exhibition in 1883.
Title: 'An Old Nag is a Sly Nag' (1883)
Medium: oil
Size: 36 x 51 cm
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1883
Current owner: Private collection
Athenaeum, 2 June 1883:
It is better than [Old Porch, Evesham]. An old nag is a sly nag (427) shows a vista of trees and a sunlit garden wall; against the latter an old gaunt white pony rubs his shoulder while he looks askant at a halter held out by a little girl to coax him to work. The character and expressions are given with cleverness and spirit, and there is a touch of humour in the action of the pony, which lets one see that he knows he will have to give in and go to work. Though a little opaque the painting here is unusually clear and bright.
Title: 'Wood-notes Wild' (1883)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1883
This painting was not noted in any of the principal newspapers or periodicals on its exhibition in 1883.
Title: School at the Aitre, St. Maclou, Rouen (1883)
Medium: oil
Size: 60 x 108½ cm
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1884; St Jude's, Whitechapel, 1885
Athenaeum, 12 April 1884:
Mr. Crowe will contribute to the Academy a picture of a good subject, being 'The School of l'Aitre de St. Maclou, Rouen'. Sunlight fills the greater part of the ancient quadrangle, and casts purple shadows on the gravel, while it illuminates the arcade and its galleries and carved columns, and glows on the grim scupltured human bones and implements of the cemetery - spades, mattocks, hammers, ropes and the like - which give lugubrious emphasis to the frieze of the quaint façade. Disposed in lines and standing grouped before this arcade are a number of little girls in French costumes of the proper order, the blue, green, purple and grey tints of which are all carefully painted and full in tone. The children are occupied with their books, learning their lessons or furtively at play, while the Dame d'Ernemont, their teacher, instructs one of the elder girls. The faces, attitudes and expressions of the children give a charm to the picture.
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This painting remained in Eyre Crowe's possession until his death, and was auctioned in 1911. It reappeared at auction twice in 2002. In a sale at Christie's in Amsterdam on 3 September 2002, it had an estimate of 5,000-7,000 euros, but was not sold. The picture is reproduced in the exhibition catalogue.
On 31 March 2007, the painting was auctioned at Ketterer Kunst fine art auction house in Hamburg, Germany, for 3,840 euros.
Title: Fish Market, Rouen (1884)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1884
Athenaeum, 12 April 1884:
Mr. Crowe has likewise painted a scene in the fish-market at Rouen, showing how the salesman's servant stands barefooted on a large white slab, and holds up a lot of fish, while the officer of the octroi, the salesman and a female clerk sit at one of the four sides of the slab, on our left. Behind this group, facing us on the other side, and on a third side, are animated groups of men and women. Among the last we notice a vigorous contest of bidding between two women, whose offers seem to exceed the value of the lot on sale, and whose energy affords sport to the bystanders, among whom are some odd figures.
Title: Bairn's Play (1885)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1885
'The babe had all that infant care beguiles, etc.'
Athenaeum, 11 April 1885:
Mr. Eyre Crowe has finished, and will probably send to the Royal Academy ... 'A Little Fish', a buxom young mother, the wife of a Normandy fisherman, sitting at the door of a cottage, amid the implements of her husband's craft-nets, oars &c., - and nursing a gleeful baby.
Athenaeum, 13 June 1885:
Mr. Eyre Crowe's Bairns Play (451) we have already described as representing a French fisherman's wife and her offspring at a cottage door. Let us now praise the spontaneity of its design, the pretty and natural actions of the figures. The painting, however, is heavy and opaque. Improvement in these respects would add to the attractions of a picture which we greatly prefer to the artist's Honeymoon in Normany (780).
Title: Honeymoon in Normandy - a Street in Lisieux (1885)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1885
Athenaeum, 11 April 1885:
Mr. Eyre Crowe has finished, and will probably send to the Royal Academy ... 'A Wedding Tour in Normandy'; a young English couple riding a tandem tricycle in the High Street of an old and picturesque town, much to the admiration and edification of the observers.
The Scotsman, 12 May 1885:
In his quaintly humorous way, Eyre Crowe has hit off the notion of a newly-wedded pair doing their honeymoon on a bicycle. The sensation excited as the equipage passes through a quiet Norman town is indicated in happily imagined look and gesture, not the least telling point being the obvious effort of the travellers to look as nonchalant as possible under the general gaze. The workmanship shows accustomed solidity, with the painter's no less characteristic hardness and dryness of manner.
The Times, 22 May 1885:
... Mr. Eyre Crowe's dreadful 'Honeymoon in Normandy' (780) - this, too, is on the line.
Illustrated London News, 30 May 1885:
Of all the pictures in the room ... Mr Armitage's 'After the Arena' (792) is - putting aside Mr. Eyre Crowe's 'Honeymoon' (780) - almost, if not quite, the worst.
Athenaeum, 13 June 1885:
... a young British couple on a tricycle in a street at Lisieux. Mr. Crowe should break his lamps.
Title: Old Chantry at Auberville, Calvados (1885)
Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1885
Athenaeum, 11 April 1885:
Mr. Eyre Crowe has finished, and will probably send to the Royal Academy ... 'Orisons', a party of Sisters of Mercy kneeling in prayer before the chancel of an ancient Norman church; we see them from near the altar, while their figures and the time-worn interior and its furniture are illuminated by the afternoon sun.
Copyright (c) 2005 Kathryn J. Summerwill. All rights reserved.