Albert Chevallier Tayler, RBC

(British, 1862-1925)

The caricature

Footnotes

Provenance
With Williams & Son, London.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above the present owner, circa 1950s).

'It is in their studies of interiors no less than in their open-air work that the Newlyn school prove their love of truth'¹. So wrote Alice Meynell, the first serious chronicler of the painters in the west Cornwall fishing village in 1889, when addressing the work of Albert Chevallier Tayler. The artist had achieved a notable success at the Royal Academy in 1887, with Bless, Oh God, these Thy gifts to our use (sold Bonhams New York, 4 May 2016, lot 88) portraying a humble mealtime in a fisherman's cottage – a painting that was sometimes referred to as 'Grace before Meat'.

Predating Frank Bramley's A Hopeless Dawn (1888, Tate) and Stanhope Forbes's A Village Philharmonic (1888, Birmingham Art Gallery), the telling details and subtilties of light and space made Tayler's work a classic for Mrs Meynell. She noted the singular beauty of the young mother and the accurate observation of the baby 'as it turns its head to sleep'.

The Academy painting was immediately purchased by the dealer, Arthur Tooth, who clearly made visual connections between this work and his current stock of contemporary Venetian pictures, headed by those of Cecil van Haanen, Luigi Nono and Ettore Tito². And while Italian comparisons were made at this time with Bramley's paintings, had Tooth delved deeper into the contents of Tayler's studio, the general affiliation would have been confirmed. In the summer of 1887, the dealer was prepared to sponsor Tayler's trip to Venice. Although, in the following exhibition season, pictures such as A Council of Three (sold in these rooms 23 January 2013, lot 96) and A Dress Rehearsal (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) were sometimes thought to have been painted during his few months in Venice, the discovery of the present canvas tends to discount this³. While The Caricature shares the same setting as these two later paintings, it is likely to predate the artist's Venice expedition⁴.

Furniture, crockery and prints differ in all three paintings; the samovar and drop-leaf table, seen in the present work, reappear in A Dress Rehearsal, while other details such as stick-back chairs, relate it more closely to earlier works – particularly Bless, Oh God, these Thy gifts to our use⁵. There are good reasons, therefore, for regarding the present canvas in which the eye is led into the space of the room by a seated figure on the left and debris placed on the floor, as a highly satisfactory prototype. Clearly what appealed to Tooth was Tayler's mastery of such naturalistic details. Few painters were more talented than he in orchestrating the mise-en-scène.

The son of a solicitor, Tayler received a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art in 1879 where he met Henry Scott Tuke and Thomas Cooper Gotch. Like his classmates he spent the academic year 1881-2 in Paris at the atelier Julian and, in later expeditions to Devon and Normandy, became a summer painting companion of Tuke. In the autumn of 1884, he was one of an important group of painters who congregated in Newlyn and although he did not remain for more than a month, his subsequent arrivals and departures were logged with enthusiasm by Stanhope Forbes⁶.

One other aspect of the present work is, however, both obvious and intriguing. Where other Newlyn maids and fishermen's wives are shown reading a letter or dressmaking, the figure on the right in the present painting is drawing a profile on the wall - perhaps that of her sailor husband, or boyfriend. In her left hand she holds a folded sheet of paper that has been removed from its envelope. The thought behind her drawing is probably contained in the primitive graphic representation on which she is engaged. She could almost be saying to her companion – 'this is what he looks like'.

While one Newlyn painter, Fred Hall, was renowned for such simplified profiles of his comrades, Tayler's painting alludes directly to the impact this school of young image-makers must have had on an otherwise, unremarkable Cornish village. Yes, it supported one of the largest fleets on the south coast; yes, it had good access to markets by rail from Penzance and, yes, throughout the halcyon days of the Newlyn painters, its piers were constantly being extended and its harbour deepened to take the draught of steam trawlers, but the record of its life in the domestic sphere it owed to artists like Tayler. In this respect, the picture of an innocent unschooled draughtswoman, watched by her workmate, is both prescient and precise.

¹Alice Meynell, 'Newlyn', The Art Journal, 1889, p. 102.
²See for instance 'Messrs Tooth's Exhibition', The Era, 15 March 1884, p. 13; 'Mr Tooth's Gallery', The Graphic, 8 November 1884, p. 12. Tooth's interest in Tayler's work is reported by Stanhope Forbes (letter to Elizabeth Armstrong, dated 26 April 1887, Hyman Kreitman Archive, Tate).
³A Council of Three and A Dress Rehearsal were shown at the New English Art Club and the Royal Academy respectively. Tayler's departure from Newlyn for his Venetian adventure and his return are reported by Stanhope Forbes (letters dated 14 June 1887 and 24 December 1887, Hyman Kreitman Archive, Tate).
⁴It will for instance be noted that the present work contains a vase of what appear to be small narcissi – i.e. spring flowers.
⁵Exotic or foreign artefacts brought back by mariners were not uncommon in coastal dwellings – as are the double-page engravings from publications such as The Graphic, that are pinned to walls.
⁶Letters written by Stanhope Forbes (dated 21 September 1884, 26 October 1884, Hyman Kreitman Archive, Tate, plus undated letters) include references to the difficulty Tayler was having in selling his work prior to 1887. It is clear from these that there was a close bond of friendship between Forbes and Tayler.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for compiling this catalogue entry.