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| Maria Spilsbury The Schoolmistress ca. 1803 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Jacques Laurent Agasse Two Hunters with a Groom ca. 1805 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| John Linnell Study of a Tree (Study from Nature) 1806 oil on panel Tate Gallery |
"From about 1804 to 1806 Linnell was the pupil and apprentice of the landscape painter John Varley, an influential teacher and central figure in the development of landscape painting in England in the early nineteenth century. Linnell had met Varley's brother William while drawing at Christie's saleroom, and on meeting John Varley had impressed him with his talent. Linnell, then thirteen years old, persuaded his father, for whom he had been earning money by copying paintings by George Morland, to let him join Varley's 'Academy', living with John and his brother Cornelius, also a painter, in Broad Street, Golden Square, Soho, central London. Varley encouraged his students to sketch directly from nature in the open air; his much-quoted motto was 'Go to Nature for everything' and, as Linnell's biographer records, 'henceforth Linnell adopted it as his own. In order the better to enable his pupils to carry out his advice, Varley in the summer took a house at Twickenham near to the river, and sent them out into the highways and byways to make such transcripts as they could."
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| George Robert Lewis Harvest Field with Reapers, Haywood, Herefordshire 1815 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| George Robert Lewis Hereford, Dynedor and the Malvern Hills, from the Haywood Lodge, Harvest Scene, Afternoon 1815 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"During Britain's long war with France (1793-1815) it was almost impossible to travel to Europe. Consequently, artists and writers focused on the native landscape with a new intensity. Like Constable, Lewis explored the possibility of working directly from nature, outdoors. This is one of a group of pictures of Herefordshire subjects which Lewis described as having been 'painted on the spot.' However, it is clear that he must have reworked the composition."
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| John Crome The Poringland Oak ca. 1818-20 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"John Crome was the founder of the Norwich School of Painters, a group of nineteenth-century artists spanning three generations, who mainly concentrated on landscape. His early pictures were strongly influenced by Dutch seventeenth-century painters. However, his mature work, including this painting, shows an increasing concern for naturalism and an interest in atmospheric effects. Crome and Constable were among the earliest artists to paint portraits of trees, representing identifiable species rather than generalised tree forms."
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| Thomas Sword Good A Man Reading ca. 1827 oil on panel Tate Gallery |
"Good was born in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He lived there for almost his entire career and first exhibited in London in 1824. He specialized in small highly finished oil paintings which usually showed one or two figures, often seated, in interiors. Like many genre painters, Good portrayed friends or professional models, introducing studio props and contrived incidents as a means of creating narrative interest."
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| Thomas Phillips Sir David Wilkie, R.A. 1829 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"David Wilkie was born in Scotland into a poor family, but became one of the great artistic success-stories of the early nineteenth century. He achieved virtually overnight success in London in the early years of the century with sentimental, narrative paintings of rural life in his homeland. By the time Phillips painted this portrait, Wilkie had spent several years touring Europe, and had turned to literary and historical subjects of a more conventional character."
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| David Wilkie Study for a portrait of William IV and Queen Adelaide ca. 1832-34 watercolor Tate Gallery |
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| David Wilkie Miss Julia Emily Gordon 1833 watercolor Tate Gallery |
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| Charles Eastlake Mrs Charles H. Bellenden Ker 1835 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Eastlake's art is characterised by his careful attention to detail, historical accuracy and a high finish. In these respects his work anticipates that of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in London in 1848. Lady Bellenden Ker was the wife of an eminent legal reformer and educationalist. Eastlake's wife, a well-known scholar, wrote of this picture that 'in certain portraits of ladies, he gratified himself and the fair sitters by attiring them in fancy costume. In this way, Mrs. Bellenden Ker appeared as an Italian contadina with a basket of grapes."
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| Theodor von Holst The Bride 1842 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Von Holst became a student of the Royal Academy at the age of 14 and was a favourite pupil of Henry Fuseli. He developed into a prolific literary painter until his untimely death from liver disease at the age of 33. Von Holst is often regarded as the link between early romantic British painters and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Rossetti described him as a 'great painter' and considered The Bride to be his masterpiece. The painting represents the forlorn bride from Shelley's poem Ginevra. She was a Florentine girl who, forced to marry an elderly nobleman, died on her wedding day."
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| Neville Cain John S. Sargent ca. 1875 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Painted by the American artist Neville Cain, John S. Sargent is a small oil portrait of the artist John Singer Sargent, showing his head and shoulders in three-quarter view. A label in French affixed to the back of the portrait reveals that it was 'Made in the atelier Carolus-Duran by Nevil Cain, American artist of St. Louis, United States of America in 1874 or 1875. Given to Arthur Heseltine.' At that time Cain was under the tutelage of society painter Carolus-Duran, an acclaimed portraitist who ran an atelier popular with American and British students. Cain's portrait of fellow student John Singer Sargent is painted in the impressionist style favoured by Carolus-Duran, who encouraged his students to adopt progressive painting methods. Rather than building up the composition from careful drawing and underpainting, Carolus-Duran espoused an 'alla prima' technique, which involves working directly onto the canvas with a loaded brush. Sargent was a favoured student of Carolus-Duran among their cohort, and unlike Cain he went on to become an acclaimed portraitist. During his time at the atelier, Cain appears to have been particularly friendly with Sargent. Once Cain had completed his studies in Paris in the late 1870s, he returned to the United States and turned his focus from painting towards illustration. He became a contributor to the Louisville Courier-Journal and wrote and illustrated several popular children's books in a series called The Fairies' Menagerie."
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| James Tissot Holyday ca. 1876 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"This painting is set in the artist's garden in the wealthy north London suburb of St. John's Wood. It features its distinctive cast-iron colonnade enclosing a large ornamental fishpond. St. John's Wood was considered a rather louche area and this picture of young people flirting, unnoticed by their sleeping chaperone, was considered by some to be rather vulgar. The men are wearing the caps of I Zingari, an elite amateur cricket club. James Tissot had fled to London in 1870 after the fall of the Paris Commune, and stayed until 1882."
– quoted passages based on notes by curators at the Tate in London