Terms and conditions of use
An English summer's day
1891-1892
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
89.8 × 106.7 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1892
Gallery location
19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
This painting was acquired on the recommendation of Hubert Herkomer, the renowned English social realist painter who was then acting as London-based adviser to the NGV’s Trustees. In 1892 Herkomer rented a farmhouse near his friend, the landscape painter John William North at Washford, Somersetshire. In April 1892 Herkomer wrote to the National Gallery Committee, ‘the oil picture I bought for Melbourne shows in a tenderness of colour found in no other landscape painting of the day. [North] lives away from society, in Somersetshire, and lingers over his work in a way unknown to most of our business-like painters... His art is not for the general public, it is for the few’.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Somerset, England
Inscription
inscribed in red paint l.r.: J W North R.W.S. / 1891-2
Accession Number
p.397.5-1
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Dame Carol Colburn-Grigor CBE through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Human Figures Landscapes Relationships and Interactions
Subjects (specific)
children (people by age group) family life seasons summer (season) United Kingdom (nation) women (female humans) wooded landscapes
Provenance
Purchased from the artist, on the advice of Sir Hubert von Herkomer, for the NGV, 1892.