Anguish
(Angoisse)
(c. 1878)
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 151.0 × 251.2 cm
- Inscription
- inscribed in brown paint l.l.: Schenck.
- Accession Number
- p.307.6-1
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1880
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited - Gallery location
- 19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
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August Schenck spent most of his career in France, specialising in painting landscapes and animal subjects. For over thirty years he was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salons, where Anguish was first shown in 1878. In Anguish, Schenck has given the ewe clearly recognisable human characteristics, such as determination and sorrow, so that the viewer immediately identifies with its predicament and emotions. The sinister murder of crows also appear organised and patiently await a moment of weakness. Schenck is here metaphorically examining a broader human condition in the context of an animal painting.
- Subjects (general)
- Animals Emotions and Mental States
- Subjects (specific)
- crows (birds) deaths domestic sheep (species) ewes (animals) grief lambs snow (precipitation) winter
- Provenance
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Exhibited Salon, Paris, 1878, no. 2026; with the Artist's Association, London, 21 November 1879; from where purchased by Agnew's (dealer), London, 1879, stock no. 1323[1]; from where purchased on the advice of Alfred Taddy Thompson, for the NGV, 21 November 1879; arrived Melbourne 1880.
[1] See Agnew’s Picture Stockbook 1879–85, NGA27/1/1/6, pp. 60-61, Thomas Agnew & Sons archive, National Gallery Research Centre, London, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/research-centre/agnews-stock-books/reference-nga27116-1879-85
Exhibited Salon, Paris, 1878, no. 2026
- Frame
- Original, maker unknown
Frame
-
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The frame on Schenck’s Anguish (purchased 1880 for £1,200) is with little doubt the frame in which the painting was shown at the Paris Salon of 1878. It is in scale and grandeur every bit a Salon frame. All the decorative work is cast and the gilding intended to create the impression of solid metal.
- Framemaker
- Unknown - 19th century
- Date
- 1878
- Materials
-
Cast plaster, wood and gold leaf