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: The Brigs of Ayr (1894)

Medium: oil

Size: 27 x 41 inches / 71 x 104 cm

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1894

Current owner: South Ayrshire Museums Service (AYRRH: 2001.0019)

The quotation accompanying this painting is the first line of Robert Burns' poem The Brigs of Ayr (1786), which refers to the contemporary replacement of the medieval bridge with a new one. The poem imagines the two bridges as ghosts, and their argument as a metaphor for and against progress.

 

Will your poor narrow footpath o' a street,

Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet,

Your ruin’d, formless bulk o’stane and lime

Compare wi’bonie brigs o’modern time?

 

The painting is one of the most fanciful ever painted by Crowe, who was known for his realistic details and unsentimental straightforwardness. According to his diary entries, he was assisted in the perspective of the composition by his friend, the eminent French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, who sent him tracings to work from. It was sold at Sotheby's on 26 September 1930, was auctioned again in 1998 and 1999 (selling at auction at Stockholms Auktionsverk on 18 May 18 1999 for £21,000). It was formerly in the possession of the Peter Nahum and Leicester Galleries in London, whose website includes a colour reproduction of the work, and an explanation of its meaning. It was purchased in 2001 by the South Ayrshire Museums service with assistance from the Edwards Bequest and the National Fund for Acquisitions.

Title: Farmhouse in the Boulonnais (1894)

Medium: oil

Size: 23 x 30 inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1894

Crowe spent the late summer of 1893 in the Boulogne region in France, and spent many days sketching and painting a farmhouse at Denaire, the end result of which was probably this picture.

Title: Foundling Hospital (1894)

Medium: oil

Size: 19 x 24 inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1894

Reproduced in Royal Academy Pictures, 1894, p. 78

Some sketching at the Foundling Hospital had been undertaken by Crowe in 1889, but his serious work on this picture took place at the end of 1893 and the beginning of 1894, with many repaintings of the principal girl figure.

This painting was one of those remaining in Eyre Crowe's possession at his death, and was sold for 12 shillings at an auction of his remaining works.

Title: Walter Morrison M.P., reading in the Reform Club (1894)

Medium: ink drawing

Size: 32½ x 20 cm

Current owner: Private collection

This sketch portrait came up for auction in 2000. Walter Morrison was a member of the Reform Club, which Eyre Crowe joined in 1861.

Title: Proclamation of George I at the Exchange (1894)

Medium: oil

Crowe mentioned this historical composition in his 1894 diary, but it was apparently never made into a completed picture.

Title: A Baptism in the Cathedral of Newcastle-on-Tyne (1895)

Medium: oil

Size: 38 x 31 inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1895

Reproduced in Royal Academy Pictures, 1895, p. 78

Athenaeum, 4 May 1895:

In A Baptism in the Cathedral of Newcastle-on-Tyne (540), a young mother has brought her first-born to the font, and waits her turn for the ceremony. A girl in front, who reads the responses to the prayers of the clergyman, is very well portrayed, and characteristic and suitable incidents abound. The figures are certainly the best part of a picture which suffers from the rather cold and monotonous treatment and opacity of the architecture.

Leeds Mercury, 19 February 1896:

...a disappointing work containing few elements of charm.

This painting actually began life as a sketch of a group of people attending a baptism in St Paul's parish church in Sheffield. Crowe made his first composition in September 1894, but altered the background to that of Newcastle in December.

Title: Le Petit Chapeau: The Hat Worn by the Emperor Napoleon at Waterloo (1895)

Medium: oil

Size: 10 x 12½ inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1895

Athenaeum, 4 May 1895:

Mr. Crowe ventured upon a rebuke to human ambition when he took upon himself to paint in Le Petit Chapeau (652) Napoleon's cocked hat, with a golden laurel at its side, and lying upon a cushion of imperial purple.

Crowe made a painted sketch of one of Napoleon's hats, which he said was the one Napoleon wore on his trips to and from St Helena, when he was in Paris in December 1894. The hat belonged to his friend Jean-Léon Gérôme and was the largest known hat of Napoleon's in existence. One presumes that this was the sketch which ended up as Le Petit Chapeau, as no other is mentioned in his diaries.

This painting was one of those remaining in Eyre Crowe's possession at his death, and was sold for 15 shillings at an auction of his remaining works.

Title: Thomas Carlyle looking at the Duke of Buccleuch's miniatures of Cromwell, his wife and daughter. From a sketch made at the time of his visit to Burlington House, 6th February 1879 (1895)

Medium: oil

Size: 10 x 8 inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1895; Manchester, 1895

Reproduced in Royal Academy Pictures, 1895, p. 111

Athenaeum, 4 May 1895:

No artist known to us has so effectually recovered himself of late as Mr. Crowe. This year his contributions bear witness to his endeavours to escape from that hard and dry manner which, joined to the partial opacity of his painting, has deprived his art of not a little of the credit due to it. Thomas Carlyle looking at the Duke of Buccleuch's Miniatures of Cromwell, his Wife, and his Daughter (674), as they hang on the red wall of a picture gallery, an incident actually witnessed by Mr. Crowe, possesses a limpidity we seldom find in his paintings. Its lighting is bright, and it approaches very nearly to what we might venture to call a good piece of colour. The portrait of the sage is wonderfully faithful, and not only the costume - the stiff black coat, for instance, and black felt hat - and the features, but the demeanour, the fitting of the coat-collar about the wearer's neck, the carriage of his head, and the set of his hat, are perfect. The red wall of the room is covered with miniatures (late the property of the Duke of Buccleuch) in gold frames, and adds much to the warmth of an interesting little picture.

This picture was exhibited in Manchester at the end of 1895, and was offered for sale at £70. Crowe accepted £35 for it from Mr Frederick Midgley, one of a firm of Manchester shipping merchants, on 7 January 1896.

Title: Fishermen's Home, Great Yarmouth (1895)

Medium: oil

Size: 20 x 30 inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1895; Düsseldorf, 1906

Reproduced in Royal Academy Pictures, 1895, p. 58

Athenaeum, 4 May 1895:

Fishermen's Home, Great Yarmouth (719) is a bright representation of a wide quadrangle enclosed by old red-brick buildings, whose roofs are high pitched and tiled, while the dormers are unusually ugly. A sculptured group illustrating charity stands in the middle of the place, where the rainy sunlight and its blackish shadows are not at all cold.

Crowe spent the late summer of 1894 on holiday in Great Yarmouth, and immediately on his arrival spotted the old Fishermen's Refuge Home, which he described in his diary as 'very picturesque old haunt, gives me a wish to paint the same'.

Title: The Mourners: Sailor's Home, Bristol (1895)

Medium: oil

Size: 21½ x 17½ inches

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1895

Reproduced in Royal Academy Pictures, 1895, p. 130

Athenaeum, 4 May 1895:

In The Mourners (747) an old fellow seated in front fondles a demonstrative dog, and, with his crutch leaning against his chair, makes a capital accessory, and suits the character of the scene. There is excellent painting in the walls and pavement.

Crowe visited Bristol on an Inspecting trip on behalf of the Department of Science and Art, and sketched the old sailor at the Duke Street almshouse on 29 November 1894. The painting was purchased from Eyre Crowe by Bristol Art Gallery in 1905, as part of the Capper Pass Bequest, but was sold on into private hands in 1956 and its present whereabouts are unknown.

Copyright (c) 2005 Kathryn J. Summerwill. All rights reserved.