THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1762, 29 August 1885, Page 25

THE SKETCHER.

MR W. P. EftlTH, 8.A., AT HOME. Born in the year 1819, at Harrogate in Yorkshire, at a time when the battle of Waterloo was a recent event, still fresh in the minds of the English people, and remembering distinctly the days when highway robberies were not unknown in the regions west of the Marble Arch, and when oil lamps alone lighted up the gloomy corners of Grosvenor-square, Mr W. P. Frith is one of the few surviving Royal Academicians' whose lives form an interesting link between the art of the past and present. As Mr Frith himself says, " It was quite a chance whether I should be an artist or an auctioneer, and when my father brought me to London, a boy of 16, he brought also a folio of chalk-and-pencil drawings— copies of engravings— and showed them to Chalon, R.A., who therefrom advised that I should be an artist, and I was accordingly made one. Years afterwards, when I was myself a Royal Aoademician, I tried to recall this incident to Chalon, but he had totally forgotten it. 1 then showed him the drawings, and he exclaimed, ' You don't mean to say that I advised you should be made an artist after seeing these things only ?' ' You most certainly did so,' said 1. • Then I ought to be ashamed of myself,' said he ; ' for they contain nothing that would warrant my doing so.' And he was perfectly right." Mr Friths house in Pembridge-villas, Bayswater, is one of the good old-fashioned and commodious type, boasting a pleasant garden, unusually large for the neighbourhood in which the house stands. The painting-room itself is lofty and spacious, hung round with fine old tapestry, which makes a pleasant contract to the panellings of dark oak. At the* east end of the room runs a gallery which is used as a r.esting-place for innumerable " properties," old Watteau capes and gowns, cavalier hats, doublet, hose, top boots, and collars of yellow lace, which have been accumulating there for the last 30' years. Two oak cabinets, elaborately carved, and blaok with age, stand against one of the walls,' their sombre tints relieved a little by the glitter of antique brass shields and helmets. " It is just 50 years ago this spring," said Mr Frith, "since my father brought me 1 on the ooaoh from York to London, and established me in what was then the only art school of the day* conducted by Mr Sass, in Charlotte street, Bloomsbury. There among my fellow-students was Millais, whom I first remember as a small boy in a brown holland pinafore, fastened round the waist with a shiny black band. Egg, Knight, Horseley, Cope, and many others whose names have since figured from time to time in Ihe Royal Academy catalogues, worked with me at Mr Sass' school. There I studied until such time as I became a probationer at the Academy. My next important step was the acceptance of my first picture by the Royal Academy, whose exhibitions were held in those days in the rooms now occupied by the National Gallery. There, at the top of the Architectural Room, in the year 1840, was hung my first picture, • Malvolio before Olivia.' From that day onward my success was most encouraging. I was made an Associate in 1845, on the strength of a picture called ' The Village Pastor.' My diploma of associateship bears the signature of J. M. W. Turner, and was signed by him, owing to the

absence from London, through "iliness of Sir Martin Archer Shee, then President of the Royal Academy. "Of course I remember Turner distinctly. I, can see him now, as he used, tp, look when he was putting finishing touches to his work at the rooms in Trafalgar square. Perphed,upon, a wooden box, his throat enveloped in a, woolly, scarf, which met his hat at the back^andjleft no I neck or head visible from behind.'ne wqplcl hp,ld; I his brush much as a housemaid, grasps a mop, and" ! work round and round with ( it', f 'in 'the'pddest. | fashion. I .remember on one occasion, a"view of, I Edinburgh by David Roberts was' ( hwg nejc't! to a, j delicately grey" work', of "Turner's," which, |[c had (christened ' Masa'niellb j ..anaj 'the^'Tijihefinah's, i Ring.' Roberts' ' picturp wis' painted • "in .thosej pale drab tint's in whichhe'was sometimes to indulge, rather to the disregard of, natural, ."I, was, painting some figures ' mi a. 1 landscape of ICreswick's at the'time, and .asCreswick's picture hung side by side with Roberta • Edinburgh/J I i could not well avoid overhearing the conversation which followed. Turner was in the act of changing into a violent blue the, originally, delicate grey colour of a piece of sky which'occupied one i comer of his picture 1 . The^bHffiarit"T>iue.did great injury' to Roberts' ' Edinburgh j' 'and!' was Snot surprised, therefore, to hear Roberts exclaim 1 . • j presently in broadest Scotch',' 1 You're making that' verra blue.' To this Turner said' nothing ;. | but after a moment or Wp lt 6f silence, during I which- the' Wue sky' became evpry instant' ; brighter; Roberts coWd, contain himself nolonger, and burst forth at last. with,, You'r.e playing the. ( verra devil' with my picture, ;with your biue.' 'This' seemed to rouse;^Turner at last," and he? [looked round at Roberts^ and. said Yery'quieit!jy t < i * You attend to your business;' 'and! I'll Attend to t mine.' ' -■■•// . • »r..#w.^..j . .j . "Yes, this is a capital painting-room' and a ' fine light, and I have done many a"gb'6Cday's work within these four walls, although most of jmy earlier, pictures— the. 'Derby, Day,' • Ramsgate Sands,' and ' Claud Duval, ; for instance ! were painted downstairs,- in j whaf is now the billiard-room. That was my original painting- ; room, and ther,e,Dickens;sat .tgjniq foe the'porj trait now in the Forster Collection at South i Kensington. There," too, 1 poor- Philip was seized 1 with paralysis, and went home to die. Dictens' , was a most punctual sitter, and invariably came, [to the instant. He always sat for ''two fcour? exactly, and.at the. end of that time woulcLbring 'out his watch and threaten me with it, as "a sign that it was time to stop. ' ,' Ramsga'te Sands,' exhibited in 1854, was botight by, the Queen, and now hangs in one. of the rooms at Osb'oriie. The • Derby Day,' which was 'finished in 1858, was" bought by Jacob Ben, the g^eat) friend of , Sir Edwin Lahdseer, and elicited various flattering criticisms from tKe press and the' public. My work has taken me into strange places sometimes. I sketched the prison yard in the ' Race, for Wealth' from Millbdnkj and I made studies of Homburg shortly before the 1 tables were closed, altogether for the groups of figures in the ' Salon dOr picture. The' Derby Day', was' more difficult, as I could only get brief impressions,"ahd,a ' general notion of the scene on the racecourse* and then work up my sketches from memory" and models at home, for I am'absoiutely wretched without canvas, brushes, and paint's,' and rfirmly, believe that if I had' been' shut upiin Holloway • gaol, and allowed tp, send 'an unlimited border to, my favourite coloiirmah in t Long Acre,' I 'should , rather have enjoyed than 'noV .six months -with; ; the hard labour to which I am accustomed^ and without the option of a fine. My 'greatest* pleasure in life is my work— even after fifty years of it. All through last winter J have been Jn this painting-room,ready to begin punctually at 9.30 a.m., and woe to the model who keeps me waiting."— Pall Mall Gazette. ' ' ,'