Beschreibung:

JAMES SANT (BRITISH 1820-1916) MORNING. IT'S THE LARK! THE HERALD OF MORN Oil on canvas Signed with monogram (lower right) 76 x 61cm (29¾ x 24 in.) Provenance: Sale, Christie's, London, South Kensington, 12 March 1992, lot 26 Private Collection Sale, Christie's, The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art, 19 February 2003, lot 51 Purchased at the above sale by the present owner Catalogue Note: Many of Sant's portraits and figure compositions show children in various stages of youth and innocence, such as Childhood (1842) and The Schoolmaster's Daughter (1874). The present picture seems to combine the qualities of a portrait with a literary and domestic subject. Here the youth is depicted as a shepherd. Numerous portraits of the period showed children dressed in tartan following the fashion for Scotland and the highlands encouraged by Queen Victoria's own fascination with that country. A student of both Augustus W. Calcott and John Varley Sant entered the Royal Academy schools in 1840 and almost immediately was able to establish a reputation as a portraitist. He was extremely popular amongst the aristocracy, and among his sitters were the Prince Consort and other members of the Royal family, the Lord Bishop of London, the Duchess of Marlborough and her family, and the children of the Prince of Wales. He undertook twenty-two portraits of the friends and relatives of the Countess of Waldegrave. Known as the Strawberry Hill collection these were shown at the French Gallery in 1861 and secured his admission as an Associate of the Royal Academy and established his reputation. He was appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to the court of Queen Victoria in 1871 and continued working up until the last year of his very long life. W.W. Fenn's conclusion to his biography of Sant in the Magazine of Art for 1880 identified accurately the secret of Sant's success: 'He has gauged his own powers Most completely, and has not perilled [sic] his reputation by attempts at sensational domestic scenes or grand historical groups. He may fairly rest content with the knowledge that the young generations to come will point with delight and pleasure to the portraits of their mothers and grandmothers which he has limned, and with a little smile of secret self-complacency will hope that they have inherited a share of that beauty and grace so pleasantly handed down to them by the dexterous [sic] and brilliant brush of James Sant RA' (p. 133). Condition Report: Relined. Paint surface appears to be in good original condition. Inspection under UV reveals a line of retouching to the right of the sitter's shoulder. There is also some retouching to the left and right edges, very minor. In original composition frame with some minor losses. Condition Report Disclaimer