Thomas Sidney Cooper, RA

(British, 1803-1902)

Repose

Footnotes

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1895, no. 209.

Literature
Royal Academy Pictures, 1895 (illustrated p. 64, erroneously listed as being 42 x 30 ins.)
H. Blackburn, Academy Notes, 1895 (illustrated p. 59).
Kenneth J. Westwood, Thomas Sidney Cooper, His life and work, David Leathers Publishing, 2011, Vol. I, cat no. O.1895.3, p. 474, (illustrated in black and white, Vol. II, plate 362, p. 286).

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, Repose is an outstanding example of the later work of Thomas Sidney Cooper.

Originally trained as a coach painter, Cooper is generally regarded as one of the foremost British animal painters of the 19th century. With support from an uncle, he first attended the RA schools in 1824, but never completed his formal training, returning to his native Canterbury to resume his career as a coach painter and drawing master. 1824 was a pivotal year for the artist: he left Kent and travelled to Brussels to seek work and there met Eugene Verboeckhoven. The Belgian artist was a supreme technician with a keen observation of nature, and it was here that Cooper would develop a skill that defined his work for the next 70 years.

Cooper returned to England in 1830 and enjoyed growing popularity with critics and the public alike; as his reputation grew so did the commissions. He was summoned to paint for Queen Victoria in 1848 and subsequently awarded the medal of the Royal Victorian Order. However his major benefactor was Robert Vernon, a self-made man who had amassed a fortune supplying horses to the British army during the Napoleonic wars – Cooper was to later name the house that he had built at Harbledown 'Vernon Holme' in recognition of the support he had received from his patron. Two years before his death in 1849, Vernon bequeathed a collection of 154 pictures to the nation, including works by Constable, Turner, Reynolds, Gainsborough and Landseer. Cooper lived the last fifty four years of his life at Harbledown just west of Canterbury, and died in February 1902.

Presented in the original frame, Repose shows a magnificent bull standing in an open landscape beside a knarled tree, with a brooding sky beyond. Two cows lie submissive at his feet in a work reminiscent of the 17th century Dutch master Paulus Potter. Indeed, this triangular composition was a popular device employed by artists as far back as the Renaissance, used to draw the viewer's attention to a figure or to give an impression of stability. Even though this work was painted when the artist was 92 years old, the quality is testament to one of the most enduring and celebrated figures of 19th century British art.