Sir Joseph Noël Paton R.S.A. 1821-1901

Alexander Hill Esq., 67 Princes Street, Edinburgh;
London, Robert Frank, 1964;
Purchased by Mr Ivor Idris Esq., of Saffron Walden, for £170;
Thence by descent

Possibly, Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1850, as A Vision of Life, Fanny Butler - First Sketch for a Large Picture, no. 499;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1860, no.646, as The Pursuit of Pleasure - Original Study of Effect & Colour for the Large Picture.;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1863, no.319, as The Pursuit of Pleasure - Original Finished Sketch for the Large Picture.

The Pursuit of Pleasure which takes its title from the Book of Job, is one of Paton's best-known and earliest allegories. The present sketch was exhibited at the RSA in 1860 as The Pursuit of Pleasure - Original Study of Effect & Colour for the Large Picture. The finished painting of 1855, now at Durban City Art Gallery in South Africa, was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1855 (number 294).

The voluptuous naked figure of a fairy-maid flies before a procession of revellers who follow in her wake. She is the figure of Pleasure, the daughter of Cupid and Psyche and bears her mother’s diaphanous wings (the Greek word for butterfly was psyche) and her father’s luminous allure. Among those who caper, clamber and stumble after the temptress, are a rapturous monk, an intoxicated bacchic priest, a pair of lovers, a knight in glittering armour, a king and a beggar. Above them all towers the winged figure of Retribution, with his sword held aloft, but he is not perceived by the crowd who blindly urge ever onward in their pursuit of hedonistic joy. Pleasure lifts up her golden tresses to reveal the pale orbs of her breasts and the soft promises of her nubile form and with a coy smile remains just beyond the grasp of her pursuers. Figures are trodden under foot, sacred wine spilled and the land laid waste, as the figures rush forward. Restraint is ignored and passion unleashed in this melée of desire, which is engulfing, possessing and corrupting. Allegiances to crown, crucifix and sword are ignored and like the effects of alcohol, drugs or obsession, all are blind and absorbed under its influence.

If there was one thing above all others that the more respectable Victorians vehemently disapproved of, it was people having too much of a good time. There was therefore a great interest in subjects depicting debauchery and utopian pleasure, as although they disapproved of pleasure, they liked to see images of what it was they disliked so much (and perhaps they also liked to see what it was they were missing). Paton combined the popular subject of fairy-folk with a touch of Classical mythology, a delectable nude and a moral of religious and ethical propriety. The naked female figure is contrasted beautifully with the figure of the armoured knight, which also demonstrates Paton's great interest in arms and armour, which he collected with much enthusiasm.

Paton's increased interest in the nubile female fairy was born from the many studies produced for The Quarrel (National Gallery of Scotland) which was exhibited the same year at the RSA as the present picture. The titilating sexuality of The Quarrel clearly spilled over a little into The Pursuit of Pleasure, although Paton had masked the inherant sensual charge of the picture in an allegory which purported to be a warning against the very subject in which he was indulging himself, the glorification of profane pleasure. A small painting by Paton entitled The Fairy Queen (Sheffield Art Gallery and Museums) depicts a similarly posed figure of a radiant nude fairy with silvery drapery and a further winged figure of night which relates to the figure of Retribution in The Pursuit of Pleasure.

The Pursuit of Pleasure was bought from the Royal Scottish Academy by Alexander Hill (d.1860), printseller and publisher to the Queen and the official Colourman and Printseller to the Royal Scottish Academy according to the Post Office Directory of 1842. He was one of the eight sons of Thomas Hill, a famous book dealer in Perth and his brother was the lithographer and first Secretary of the RSA from 1830-1869, David Octavius Hill. The Hill family connections would have brought them into very close contact with the artists of the Royal Scottish Academy and it is possible that Hill and Paton knew one another.