Henry Wallis

Lifford Antiques;
Sotheby's, London, 27 March 1973, lot 47 where bought by J. S. Maas on behalf of Sir David Scott.

London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1854, no. 176;
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Sunshine & Shadow - The David Scott Collection of Victorian Paintings, 1991, no. 7.

Art Journal, 1854, p.161;
Sotheby's, Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, 2008, pp. 92-93.

The following condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. STRUCTURAL CONDITION The canvas appears to be lined and is on a wooden keyed stretcher. There is also a dry lining canvas visible from the reverse of the painting. This is providing a stable structural support. PAINT SURFACE Under ultraviolet light scattered retouchings can be seen. These appear: 1. in the left hand shoulder and arm of Dr Johnson's coat, 2. a vertical band of retouching adjacent to the left hand vertical framing edge approximately 19cm in length, 3. spots in the hands and dress of the girl, and 4. other spots and flecks in the tablecloth and background All retouchings have been carefully applied and appear to be of minimal size. The majority of these would appear to be covering areas of thinness to the paint surface and very small paint losses and drying cracks. The varnish surface is slightly uneven. SUMMARY The painting therefore appears to be in good and stable condition with restoration work having been undertaken in the past. Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 4004 Fax: +44 (0)20 7930 4100 Email: hamish@hamishdewar.co.uk
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Henry Wallis' subject, showing the impoverished Dr Johnson being given an impromptu meal when visiting his publisher Edward Cave, was inspired by a note by Edward Malone in the third edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, published in 1799. This describes how Johnson was living a hand-to-mouth existence in the period before he gained a professional reputation. Wallis shows him as prematurely aged (he was only in his mid-thirties at this time), and with worn and badly repaired clothes. He peers myopically (he had poor eyesight as a result of contracting scrofula as a child) at the writing slope at which he works, and appears not to be happy to be interrupted by the arrival of the young servant who brings food to him.

The visit to Edward Cave in fact represented a turning-point in Johnson's career, because it was from Cave that he received the commission to write a series of pieces for the Gentleman's Magazine, of which Cave was the founder and proprietor. The esteem in which these articles were held eventually led to Johnson becoming one of the most eminent literary figures of the day. Among them was his poem 'London', of 1738, in which he described his friend the poet Richard Savage's miserable life in the city and their nocturnal ramblings together. This was followed by his Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744), one of the seminal works of biography in the English language. His Debates in The Senate of Lilliput - a commentary on contemporary parliamentary debate, also appeared in Cave's periodical. Johnson's work as a writer is alluded to in the painting: the paper lying beside the inkwell is inscribed 'For June 1744 / Debates' and 'Lilliput', while the paper upon which the red bound book is placed is marked 'Savage'.

The pattern of Henry Wallis's training as an artist was slightly unusual in that he studied for a period in Paris, in the atelier of the painter Gleyres and also at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He first exhibited in public in Manchester in 1853, and then showed the present painting at the Royal Academy in 1854, the first of thirty-five of his works to be shown there up until 1877. He remained a figure on the Pre-Raphaelite fringe until the early 1860s. He was a member of the Hogarth Club which may be regarded as indicating that he was part of the progressive movement in painting that led forward from Pre-Raphaelitism to the Aesthetic Movement. However, he apparently inherited a considerable property in 1859, a factor which perhaps allowed him to be less ambitious about his professional career. Certainly the works that he showed in later years are much less interesting than those of the 1850s. In later years, Wallis devoted much of his energy and resources to studying and collecting ceramics.

The colour and texture of the present work, and the careful observation of detail (when showing the painting to friends, Sir David used to point out the red marks on the arms of the servant, which he believed were burns from a hot oven), identify Wallis as one who was influenced by contemporary Pre-Raphaelitism. The work was not approved of by the critic of the Art Journal, who condemned it as a 'subject [...] unsuited to Art and [one that] ought not to have been painted'. It was, however, the prototype of the most remarkable painting of Wallis's early career, and the work for which he is now remembered, The Death of Chatterton (Tate), and which showed the suicide of the young poet in a garret bedroom. This was accompanied at the 1856 Royal Academy by another literary subject, Andrew Marvell Returning the Bribe (whereabouts unknown).

Dr Johnson was an admired figure of English literature in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1860 Dante Gabriel Rossetti made a pen and ink drawing of Dr Johnson at the Mitre, illustrating a passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).