John Morgan, RBA

(British, 1823-1886)

Fish market - make your bid

Footnotes

Provenance
(Probably) The French Gallery, London, 1865.
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 15 November 2007, lot 112.
Private collection, UK.

This painting is one of three that John Morgan painted in the fishing village of Newhaven, just north of Edinburgh. Morgan had taken his family to live there immediately following the opening of the Royal Academy exhibition in 1865: they remained there for approximately two years.

Extracts from Morgan's diary of 1865 help place the picture. On 9 May he wrote 'I was much pleased and my imagination excited by the shipping I saw there, we walked on to Newhaven, were[sic] I was to find all I wanted. The costumes and dwellings of the fisherwomen greatly delighted. Their petticoats striped and coloured, their baskets and their outer stairs appeared to me most picturesque'.

The painting marked a return to Morgan's ambitious multi-figure works. His son Fred Morgan aged 18, who had left school at 14 and by this time was exhibiting his own works, would have helped his father with the twenty six figures.

The picture was bought by the London dealer Thomas Wallis of the French Gallery, 120 Pall Mall, London. Wallis entered the two earlier works painted in Newhaven Going to the boats and Coming from the boats at the British Institution.

We are grateful to Terry Parker for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.