The Last of England (painting)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Last of England'' is an 1855 oil-on-panel painting by
Ford Madox Brown Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often William Hogarth, Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his mos ...
depicting two emigrants leaving
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
to start a new life in Australia with their baby. The painting has an oval format and is in the
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...
.


Background

Brown began the painting in 1852 inspired by the departure of his close friend, the
Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
,
Thomas Woolner Thomas Woolner (17 December 1825 – 7 October 1892) was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members. After participating in the found ...
, who had left for Australia in July of that year. Emigration from England was at a peak, with over 350,000 people leaving that year. Brown, who at the time considered himself "very hard up and a little mad", was himself thinking of moving to
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
with his new family.


Painting

The painting depicts a man and his wife seeing England for the last time. The two main figures, based on Brown and his wife, Emma, stare ahead, stony-faced, ignoring the
white cliffs of Dover The White Cliffs of Dover is the region of English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliff face, which reaches a height of , owes its striking appearance to its composition of chalk accented by streaks of black flint, deposi ...
which can be seen disappearing behind them in the top right of the picture. They are huddled under an umbrella that glistens with sea-spray. The family's clothing and the bundle of books next to them indicate that they are middle class and educated,Penny, Nicholas (24 January 2019). "Down the Telescope". ''London Review of Books''. 41 (2): 21–24. and so they are not leaving for the reasons that would force the emigration of the
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
es; Brown's writing touched on the same theme: In the foreground a row of cabbages hang from the ship's rail, provisions for the long voyage. In the background are other passengers, including a pair of drunken men, one of whom was conceived by Brown as "shaking his fist and cursing the land of his birth".Treuherz, Julian, Angela Thirlwell, Kenneth Bendiner, and Ford Madox Brown (2011). ''Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer''. London: Philip Wilson in association with Manchester Art Gallery. p. 182. . Also present are "an honest family of the green-grocer kind, father (mother ''lost''), eldest daughter and younger children". The father is barely visible except for the pipe he holds; his daughter has her arm around a curly-haired boy. The fair-haired child eating an apple behind the man's shoulder was modeled by Brown and Emma's child,
Catherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...
, who was born in 1850. The baby concealed under the cloak of the woman in the foreground, and whose hand she is clasping, is supposedly their second child, Oliver. In order to mirror the harsh conditions in the painting Brown worked mostly outside in his garden, and was happy when the weather was poor – he recorded his feelings of delight when the cold turned his hand blue, as this was how he wanted it to appear in the painting. He was seen as strange by his neighbours who saw him out in all kinds of weather. He composed a short verse to accompany the painting in which the woman is depicted as hopeful for the future: Brown's painting room was above a china shop at 33 High Street,
Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
and sittings took place in the house's garden. His diary noted that the "ribbons of the bonnet took me 4 weeks to paint".


Style

Although Ford Madox Brown was never a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, ''The Last of England'', like many of his paintings, exhibits the characteristics of the movement in its luminous colour and minute focus on naturalistic detail. The format of the painting is nearly circular, a shape that emphasises the instability of the couple beginning a long journey on a turbulent sea. The art historian
Nicholas Penny Sir Nicholas Beaver Penny (born 21 December 1949) is a British art historian. From 2008 to 2015 he was director of the National Gallery in London. Early life Penny was educated at Shrewsbury School before he studied English at St Catharine ...
suggests that the scene is "viewed as though down a telescope", and that "this adds poignancy and even urgency to the beholder's situation". Brown's conception may have been influenced by the vogue at mid-century in the use of telescopes at seaside. The couple's fellow-passengers in the background are compressed, as if by a telephoto lens, into a foreshortened space.


Versions

Two finished versions of the picture exist, one in
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...
and the other in the
Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...
in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
. A reduced watercolour replica of the painting in Birmingham produced between 1864 and 1866 is in
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
. A fully worked study also exists, and a detailed compositional drawing. The colouring varies among the different versions. All have a vertical oval shape, that was commonly used for half-length portraits, and perhaps recall the round Renaissance tondo format.


Provenance

In March 1859 ''The Last Sight of England'', as it was then known, was sold by Benjamin Windus to
Ernest Gambart Jean Joseph Ernest Theodore Gambart (12 October 1814 – 12 April 1902) was a Belgian-born English art publisher and dealer who dominated the London art world in the middle of the nineteenth century. Life and career Gambart was born in Kortrijk, ...
for 325
guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
(''2019: £'').


Popularity

The picture was voted Britain's eighth-favourite picture in a poll carried out by
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
. In 2013 it was voted 32 out of 57 paintings chosen by the British public from national collections, which were used for ''Art Everywhere The World's Largest Public Art Exhibition''."Peter Blake Launches Art Everywhere The World's Largest Public Art Exhibition", Artlyst, 08 August 2013
/ref>


References

* * * *


External links


Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, ''Last of England'' Online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Of England 1855 paintings Paintings by Ford Madox Brown Collections of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Paintings in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum Collection of the Tate galleries 1855 in England England in fiction Works about immigration Maritime paintings