William Edward Millner

Christie's, London, 2 February 1979, lot 190;
Roy Miles, London, where bought by Sir David Scott for £1,800

STRUCTURE The canvas has been relined. PAINT STRUCTURE Some scattered old craquelure but this is otherwise in good condition and ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET UV light reveals spots of retouching to the sky, upper left and along the upper right edge. Also a line of retouching to the left of the man's coat and a line of retouching to an old stretcher mark running down the upper right border. Some minor scattered spots elsewhere. FRAME Held in a lightly decorated gilded composite frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is presumably a scene set in Millner's native town of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. Although treated with a certain naivety, the observation of the figure's clothes and the bag in which he carries the letters to be delivered, as well as the wooden cased pump and hinged box upon which stands a pottery bottle, is extraordinary.

Although the postal service has its origins in the seventeenth century, it was not until 1840 and the advent of the Penny Post that the sending of mail was made affordable for almost everyone. The cost was limited to one penny per letter, regardless of the distance it was to travel, and improvements to transport infrastructures made the possibility of sending mail much easier and quicker. The best-known stamps of this early period are the Penny Black and the Mulready, a pre paid envelope, also became popular around this time. By the mid-1840s the last of the horse-drawn mail coaches were replaced by rail delivery from London, although in rural areas the post was still transported by coaches. In the mid-1850s the novelist and Postmaster Anthony Trollope devised a scheme for placing post-boxes around the country for people to deposit their letters for collection, and with improvements to the services no longer requiring customers to purchase stamps on the day they were to be posted, it was possible for letters to be sent without visiting post offices. Later in the same decade, Rowland Hill proposed a system of dividing London into a series of ten distinct postal districts and invented the first postal codes.