John Faed, R.S.A.

Art Association, 1849;
The Fine Art Society, London where purchased by Christopher Forbes in 1980;
His sale, Christie's, 19 February 2003, lot 7;
Private collection

Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1850, no.104;
Manchester, Jubilee Exhibition, 1887, no.394;
London, Guildhall, 1890;
Blackburn, 1894, no.89;
London, Guildhall, 1900;
Edinburgh and London, The Fine Art Society, Art in Scotland 1800-1920, 1980;
Edinburgh and London, The Fine Art Society, 32 Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 1981;
Ten Years of The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh, 1983;
New York, The Forbes Magazine Galleries, Childhood in Victorian England: The Best of Corporate Art in America, 1985, no.16;
New Haven, Yale Centre for British Art; Oregon, Portland Art Museum and New York, The Forbes Magazine Galleries, Victorian Childhood, 1986;
London, Sotheby's, Childhood: A Loan Exhibition of Works of Art in aid of The Save the Children Fund, 1988, no.235;
Lancaster, The Judge's Lodgings; Blackburn, Museum and Art Gallery; Burnley, Townley Hall Art Gallery and Blackpool, The Grundy Art Gallery, The Age of Innocence: Children in Art 1830-1930, 1989;
Manchester City Art Gallery; Hull, Ferens Art Gallery; Nottingham Castle Museum; Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Innocence and Experience; Images of Children in British Art from 1600 to the Present, 1992-3, no.42;
Mexico, Museo Nacional de San Carlos, La Era Victoriana: un siglo de pintura Britanica, 1997, no.19;
Charlotte, Mint Museum of Art; Nashville, Cheekwood Museum of Art; Wilmington, Delaware Art Museum; Tampa Art Museum and New York, The Forbes Magazine Galleries, The Defining Moment: Victorian Narrative Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 2000-1, no.12

Mary McKerrow, The Faeds, 1982, p.10;
M.R. Brown, Picturing Children, Constructions of Childhood Between Rousseau and Freud, 2002, illustrated fig.1.3.

The canvas is lined. There is a craquelure pattern mainly located in and around the clouds, otherwise the work appears in good overall condition, clean and ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals a spot of retouching to the left of the man's top hat and further flecks through the sky and foreground, mainly cosmetic and well executed. Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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John Faed was one of the most feted artists of his generation, greatly celebrated in his native Scotland and England and following his exhibition of a popular portrait of George Washington he became well-known in America. Art Journal commented in 1860: 'We know of no artist in modern times who exhibits such manipulative power - every square inch seems a work of time'. His life was almost entirely Victorian; he was born in 1819 three months after Queen Victoria and died a year after her. He was the eldest son of the six children of James Faed, tenant of Barlay Mill in Galloway. His brothers Thomas and James also became well-known artists and in 1878 five members of the Faed family exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, including the sons of John's brother James.

Boyhood is a relatively early work by Faed, painted in 1849 and exhibited a year later at the Royal Scottish Academy with two further depictions of childhood, Fun and Curiosity. All three pictures sold immediately, Boyhood to the Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts for forty pounds. Faed was not yet thirty when he painted this recollection of childhood. He had attended Girthon Parish School until he was eleven, and the Castle Douglas Weekly Visitor for 19 August 1831 recorded that at the examination of Girthon school; ‘the company present were shown a beautiful and correct book of maps, executed by John Faed, as a specimen of his many and varied drawings, which often ere now have elicited the admiration of all who have seen them’.

The painting is thought to depict the landscape of Galloway, looking towards Gatehouse-of-Fleet. A diminutive and aged schoolmaster is attempting to end the fight between two young boys on their way to or from school. One of the boys is crying and has a bloodied nose whilst the other is squaring-up for round two. The three figures are seen from below, giving them a monumentality within the composition and emphasising the dynamism of the scene. The painting successfully captures the differing archetypes of the boys; one thuggish and scruffy with ill-fitting clothes, bare feet and unkempt hair; the other neater and more cherubic with precociously large shoes to grow into.

Boyhood has a distinguished and extensive exhibition history and has become one of Faed’s best-known pictures and among the most recognisable images of Victorian childhood.