Beschreibung:

Gilbert Stuart Newton (British, 1794-1835) Hiding Sir John Falstaff: A Scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor Signed and dated indistinctly "G.S. Newton/18...8" l.l. transcribed signature "G.S. Newton" in red on the reverse. Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. (51.0 x 61.3 cm),framed. Condition: Lined, minor retouch, scattered shallow abrasions, stable craquelure. N.B. The painting at hand illustrates a comic moment in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. In Act III, scene iii, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page convince the knavish Falstaff that he must hide in a laundry basket beneath filthy linens to avoid being discovered by Mistress Ford's jealous and suspicious husband, who is approaching to catch him with his wife. Then the women have servants carry off the basket and dump all its contents, including Falstaff, into the river. The artist Gilbert Stuart Newton excelled at and enjoyed this genre of painting depicting anecdotal scenes of literary subjects. The artist was born of a British father and American mother, and he began his art training in Boston with his uncle, Gilbert Stuart after whom he was named. Stuart Newton was not a particularly respectful student, so that his departure for Florence in 1817 apparently did not dismay his uncle. Stuart Newton went on to spend time in Paris before settling in London, where he earned early commissions as a portrait painter. While he did not have the patience for careful draftsmanship, he was a gifted colorist. In London he befriended the English genre painter Charles R. Leslie, from whom Stuart Newton truly learned his craft. In an 1834 letter, the author Washington Irving described Stuart Newton thusly, "His coloring is almost unrivalled, and he has a liveliness of fancy, a quickness of conception, and a facility and grace of execution, that spread a magic charm over his productions." A typed transcription of Washington Irving's letter, as contained within an essay by William Dunlap accompanies the lot.