Edwin Frederick Holt British, 1830-1912

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 AUD

bidding is closed

Description

Edwin Frederick Holt
FAMILY GROUP, ALMA COTTAGE
Signed and dated 1874 lower centre
Oil on canvas
50 by 56 cm

Provenance

Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne

Collection of Ted Lustig, Melbourne

Literature

Reproduced as the cover of Sir Sir John Betjeman's Ghastly Good Taste, or the depressing story of the Rise and Fall of British Architecture, National Trust Classics, Century Hutchison, Melbourne, reprinted 1986 (first published by Chapman and Hall, Great Britain, 1933)

Catalogue Note

Edwin Frederick Holt trained at the Royal Academy Schools and won a silver medal in 1854. He exhibited several times at the R.A. and also regularly at the British Institution and the Society of British Artists’ Suffolk Street gallery. His date of birth has only recently been discovered, because in later life he signed a painting 'E. F. Holt Age 75 1904'.¹ Although the style of that later work is much looser, the subject is very similar, with family members including children and dogs outside a pretty cottage surrounded by trees. Holt was known for genre paintings, often of country life and, especially in his later career, of animals including domestic pets. His wife was also an artist and exhibited 'A Study from Nature', at the Society of British Artists in 1857.

Judging from listings in contemporary exhibition catalogues, Holt and his family lived at various addresses in Camden Town but also seem to have moved about quite frequently. In 1857, they gave a Knightsbridge address. The following year they had moved to 1, Alma Road, Thornton Heath in Croydon. However, the fact that the house in the present work is named 'Alma Cottage' is probably coincidental for, after the Crimean War, there were houses, streets and public landmarks named for its battles all over the Empire (the Battle of Alma in September 1854 is often considered the first battle of the war and was a Franco-British victory). The Holts had an address care of the Rev. Charles Padley, at Bulwer Hall near Nottingham, in 1859 and were back in London by 1860.

Family group, Alma Cottage is an especially appealing example of his work, painted in his typically affectionate and slightly naïve style. Father, mother, three children dressed in their best and two handsome dogs are presented in front of their newly built brick-and-stone ‘Queen Anne’-style cottage, surrounded by newly planted garden beds. Their pride is almost palpable.

1. ‘Pony and trap in front of thatched cottages’, in British and Continental Pictures, Bonham’s, Knightsbridge, 10 October 2006, lot 173.