Frederick GoodallEngeland, 1822–1904The Village Post Office
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Victoria and Albert Museum
Londen, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Het hoort bij de collectie, maar is momenteel niet tentoongesteld.
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Over het schilderij
The Village Post Office is an 1849 oil painting by the British artist Frederick Goodall. A genre painting, it depicts a scene outside a post office in an English village, including a man reading aloud from a newspaper. It was one of his earliest prominent works in a long career stretching through the Victorian era. It makes reference to the penny post that had been established at the beginning of the decade.
Equally it has been suggested that the scene at in fact be a nostalgic depiction of the eighteenth century.
Verder lezen
The following year Goodall produced a larger, different version of the painting that he exhibited at the British Institution in 1850. It makes it more explicit that the man is reading news of the Sikh War from The Times. This was later engraved as a print by Charles William Sharpe. The smaller 1849 work is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, having been given as part of the Jones Bequest by the art collector John Jones.
In de woorden van het museum
The first regular pre-paid postal service in the world began in England in 1840, and paintings such as this exploited popular interest in sending and receiving letters. In early years, a village post office often had its home in the local inn, which was, (and still is in some places), with the church, the focal centre of the community. The people on the left are reading a copy of the Times which carries the news of victory for Britain in the first Sikh War of 1845/6, another topical reference of the kind the mid-century exhibition audience so much enjoyed, while the other group, a woman with her children, have received a letter - sealed with black wax to indicate a death - presumably with the news that the family have lost their husband and father in the battle.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Gegevens
- Inventarisnummer
- 512-1882
Wat het toont
In de catalogus
Bronnen
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Afbeelding: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
