John Berney Ladbrooke

Bt by present owner's grandfather c. 1960;
by descent

STRUCTURE The canvas has been lined. PAINT STRUCTURE The painting appears to be in excellent condition. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT Ultraviolet light reveals no recent retouching or restoration. FRAME Held in a carved and gilded decorative frame.
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This impressive painting, recently re-discovered, is one of the most substantial oil paintings ever undertaken by John Berney Ladbrooke and is unique for the large number of people portrayed. It is likely that it was painted in the 1830s, probably as a commission as there appears to be no exhibition record, and it is painted on a canvas with the exact dimensions he reserved for specifically important works.

By tradition this painting was thought to be by Robert Ladbrooke, John Berney Ladbrooke's father, who more typically painted scenes with large groups of figures. Robert was known to have produced a small oil of a mackerel market on Yarmouth beach in 1812, with a busy crowd buying fish at auction, and in the same year he painted many folk merrymaking on Richmond Hill, Norwich. Although the Yarmouth oil was signed (with initials RL), it transpires that most paintings by both father and son were never inscribed. Confusion has followed and, today, pictures said to be by Robert Ladbrooke in particular are slowly undergoing reappraisal.

The overall appearance of this painting and the many colours reveal the widespread choice of palette used by John Berney. The handling of the foreground foliage, both in drawing and colouring, typifies his work of this period as do the broad leaved ground vegetation and the grass, finely crosshatched, with reeds close by. The treatment of both water and sky similarly does this too, with a very truncated cloud which are hallmarks of his distinctive style. Comparison with other works of his reveal a special trait - the rare appearance of a pipe smoker puffing away on board one of them wearing the same hat with a pipe in his mouth also in profile.

Crowd scenes became a feature of the leading painters of the Norwich School. John Crome painted the Fish Market at Boulogne, his son John Berney the Yarmouth Water Frolic of 1821, and Joseph Stannard completed the Thorpe Water Frolic in 1825. George Vincent painted sailors and Yarmouth fish markets, and a Dutch Fair on the beach with a hundred folk. James Stark produced his Fair on the Banks of the Bure. As it happens John Thirtle painted a small watercolour of the Wroxham Water Frolic helping to confirm the location by likewise placing Hoveton House, the home of the Blofields, in the distance. These artists shared ideas so it is hardly surprising that a prolific artist such as the slightly younger John Berney Ladbrooke became inspired enough to try his hand at this type of genre painting. Unrecognised for so long this new discovery about an old canvas should prove to be of considerable interest to Norwich School scholars. This painting will be published in a forthcoming Norwich School book by Peter Kennedy Scott whom we thank for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.