John Morgan, R.B.A. 1823-1886

John Morgan, like his contemporaries Thomas Webster, Frederick Daniel Hardy and Thomas Faed, specialised in light-hearted images of cheerful family life in quaint, humble dwellings. Mischievous but endearing children, pleasant-faced parents and jovial grandparents inhabit these paintings and although the interiors are modest and presumably those of mining or agricultural families, there are always smiling faces. Often centred around the theme of an older figure reading to his family or of a warm meal being brought to the table, these paintings embody the importance of family unity, even in the adversity of poverty. These paintings follow in the tradition of artists like David Wilkie and William Mulready. As Christiana Payne has pointed out ‘Paintings of cottage interiors could demonstrate the virtues and good character of the rural poor – and by extension, of the nation as a whole… Like nineteenth-century novels, these paintings incorporate careful characterisation; a psychological study of relationships between different characters; pathos or humour; closely-observed passages of description, involving not simply the outlines of objects but the subtleties of light and shade, colour and reflection.’ (Christiana Payne, Rustic Simplicity; Scenes of Cottage Life in Nineteenth Century British Art, exhibition catalogue for Djanolgy Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, 1998, pp. 5-6)

Another autograph version of this painting, of similar dimensions, was sold in these rooms on 6 June 2001, lot 87, entitled The Story. It is possible that one of these versions was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1864.

John Morgan was the son of the popular painter Frederick Morgan and inherited his father’s interest in painting subjects of Victorian childhood. He exhibited one hundred and fourteen pictures at the Royal Society of Artists on Suffolk Street and many pictures at the Royal Academy between 1852 and 1882, the majority of which were of children. Typical titles include Marbles, Ginger Beer and The Young Politician and his paintings are now in several distinguished public collections, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Guildhall Art Gallery and at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.