Chickens and ducks in a river landscape
Chickens and ducks in a river landscape
FRANCIS BARLOW
1626-1704
English School
Chickens and ducks in a river landscape
Oil on canvas, partially signed F. Barl and dated 16..
91.5 x 117 cms
36 x 46 ins
Overall framed size 111 x 136.5 cms
43¾ x 53 ½ins
Ex Collection: Apsey House, Batheston, (according to a label on the reverse)
The influence of Flemish painting on the nascent English sporting and animal painting was highly significant and at the court of James 1 there were connoisseurs who were particularly enamoured of the magnificent hunting scenes by Rubens. This influence preceded that of the more specific Dutch Golden Age bird painters such as Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695) and animal painters such as Abraham Hondius c.1625-1695. Francis Barlow was the first native-born artist to concentrate on the depiction of sporting subjects and animals, emerging during the Interregnum.
Barlow was a painter and etcher of birds, animals and sporting subjects and lived and worked in London. In the frontispiece of his Multae et diversae avium species published in 1671, the artist states that he is “Indigenam Londinensum” but there were some who believed that he was originally from Lincolnshire and in Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, published in 1732, the artist is referred to as Barlow of Lincolnshire.
He had been apprenticed to the Drury Lane based Court portrait painter William Sheppard while very young and it is has been suggested that he may have visited The Hague between 1645 and 1650, one indicator being that his horse painting shows significant influence of the early masters of the Low Countries. His horses are rounded with strong rear quarters and impressively arched necks with flowing manes and in 1649 an engraving was published in The Hague of Princess Elizabeth. The following year, having completed his apprenticeship, he was admitted to the freedom of the Company of Painter-Stainers.
His first recorded work was a drawing of David slaying the Lion dated 1648 which is now in the collection of the British Museum together with another 51 works by him.
By 1652, Barlow had set up a studio at the Drum Inn and then had a shop in New Street which he named the Golden Egg which was ideal for selling his own publications like Aesop’s Fables.
Francis Barlow has been called a kind of English Hondecoeter as there are similarities in subject matter in some of his paintings of fowl but as M H Grant writes of the former in his Old English Landscape Painters: “For him, the skies and meads existed for the display of huge and numerous birds…very masterly, one and all, are these presentiments, displaying powers in draughtsmanship and imagination, in grouping, …” Two fine examples of this, from the collection of Lord Onslow (now at Clandon Park, National Trust), are The Farmyard and The Decoy which are both crowded with birds. He had an ‘earthy’ understanding of his subject matter and his animated scenes of birds, shooting and fishing subjects, often in a large format and utilising a dark palette, were painted in more naturalistic surroundings than his predecessors in Europe
He was a keen observer of birds and animals in the wild and sketched outdoors which resulted in his birds displaying the characteristics befitting their species. Once, when working outdoors, he observed an eagle taking a cat and carrying it skywards but the cat’s struggles forced the eagle down to the ground and the pen and ink drawing recording this event, together with the etched plate, survive. He was particularly adept at showing birds in flight, a skill not mastered by many, particularly his contemporaries, and when he visited the Bass Rock off the coast of Scotland to paint, the picture teems with life and many of the birds are seen flying. In addition to travelling into the country to find subject matter, there were opportunities also in London. At Bartholomew Fair a cassowary was displayed and the ensuing painting is now at Clandon Park having come from the Onslow collection. Charles II had an aviary of birds in St James’s Park and also some ostriches which had been gifted to him by the Moroccan Ambassador and were allowed to roam the grounds. The King’s mews had falcons, hawks and eagles which could be studied.
His compositions tend to be full of interest rather than having a main feature serving as the focal point. On this point, Barlow stated that his main objective was the overall design and that he could not “…perform curious neatness without loosing the spirit which is the main.” Waterhouse refers to Barlow as producing “…faithful interpretation of native bird and animal life…” and “The founder of sporting genre in England, was a distinguished painter in his own right”. By this he means that rather than gaining renown just for portraying famous race horses but without exceptional artistic merit, Barlow was first and foremost a highly regarded artist.
Barlow’s renown spread beyond England, possibly partly enabled by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, who was living in exile in Antwerp in the house of Rubens’s widow. He was a renowned authority on horsemanship and collector of horse portraiture and consequently took an interest in any developments in his native land. In 1658, William Sanderson wrote in Graphice that Barlow was now “…comparable with any now beyond the Seas” and referenced “Barlo” (sic) for his Fowl and Fish.” An observation from Richard Symons, who had visited the artist’s studio in Drury Lane in the early 1650s and paid £8 – a significant amount – for a painting of fish, says that: “…he uses to make fowle and birds & colour them from the life…he paynts the ayre first then the chiefe thing of his quadro afterward.” This is interesting as this technique is at variance from such artists as Pieter Tillemans and George Stubbs who completed the animals and staffage first and then worked the trees and landscape around them. Barlow has been described as an English landscape painter as “…without rival in Britain either in feeling or technical skill” as evinced in his work Sportsman shooting a Heron.
He painted for his patrons and also produced etchings of some of these but he also etched paintings of others and these prints show considerable skill. Etching had first appeared at the turn of the 16th century, probably derived from the method employed to decorate armour. Barlow was inspired by the Czech-born artist Wenzel Hollar and he produced many sepia drawings to be etched by Hollar, Arthur Soley and Francis Place among others. Barlow was responsible for the first English racing print: The Last Race before Charles the Second at Windsor which he published in 1687. He etched 110 plates for his own edition of Aesop’s Fables which was published in 1666 and ran for three editions and also illustrated Severall Wayes of Hunting, Hawking and Fishing, according to the English Manner with Hollar etching Barlow’s drawings and it was published by John Overton in 1671. It was the first example of English sporting prints to be sold as stand-alone prints as opposed to being illustrations for a book. His spelling could be criticised however as in the 1655 first edition of Multae et diversae avium species, Barlow labelled some of the plates as: “Fesonts, patriges, Pegions, Peacokes, Gease, Wild dookes, Lapwinks etc.” Barlow also designed illustrations for Richard Blome’s 1686 The Gentleman’s Recreation and in 1652 he produced some illustrations for Thephila, a work by the poet Benlowes.
Barlow always insisted that despite his skill at etching and the commissions that ensued, that he was not an etcher by profession but a painter. In 1666 he wrote that “I do not pretend to be a professional etcher, but a well-wisher to the art of painting.” However, the print production was lucrative and he earned more from his etched plates than from his paintings.
Titles of some of Barlow’s paintings include: Birds in a river landscape: A red stork, a red finch, a macaw and a bird in the air; An owl being mobbed by other birds; A Jay, green woodpecker, pigeons and redstart; A roller, two peregrine falcons and a long-eared owl with her young (Tate Britain); An Ostrich (at Clandon Park and measuring 254 x 122 cms); Monkeys and a dog playing; Southern-mouthed hounds; Three Hares; Arthur, 3rd Viscount Irwin which is a remarkable large painting depicting the boy, full-length, standing in a delightfully composed river, landscape loading his gun while his dog brings him a shot rabbit, other game including a hare and woodcock around him and a flight of duck fly above.
Works by him can be seen in the following museums and collections: British Museum; Tate Britain; Victoria and Albert Museum, Courtauld; Ashmolean Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum; National Trust: Clandon Park (6), Ham House, Anglesey Abbey; St John’s College, University of Oxford; Harris Museum and Art Gallery; Kew Palace; Longleat House; Corsham Court; Meol’s Hall, Parham House; Plymouth Art Gallery; Hill of tarvit, Fife; Yale Center for British Art; Huntington Collection; New Haven, Conn. YCBA; Mumford NY GCM; Virginia PMC.
He was praised by his contemporaries and in later art criticism. The diarist Evelyn wrote in 1656 that “Barlow, the famous painter of Fowl, Beasts and Birds” and George Vertue, writing in the Walpole Society in the 18th century, describes him as “…a sociable and pleasant companion much beloved by the gentry…having in his younger days been a noted sportsman, particularly for fishing.” For his all-round virtuosity, he has become known as the Father of British Sporting Art.
His renown and regular patronage was financially well rewarded and in addition to his earnings, apparently he also received a significant inheritance during his lifetime, but in spite of this it is believed that he died poor on 11th August 1704 and was buried at St Margaret’s in Westminster.
Bibliography:
Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World - Christine E Jackson
Dictionary of 16th and 17th Century British Artists – Ellis Waterhouse
Old English Landscape Painters Vol. 1 – M H Grant
Dictionary of British Animal Painters – J C Wood
Dictionary of British Bird Painters - Frank Lewis
Angling in British Art – Shaw Sparrow
Dictionary of British Sporting Painters – Sydney H Paviere
Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists - Sally Mitchell
Painting in Britain 1530-1790 – Ellis Waterhouse
British Sporting Painting 1650.1850 – Hayward Gallery, London, 1975
Sporting Art in Britain - British Sporting Art Trust
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