Australian author Stephen Scheding has
contacted us again about his research into this picture, which
I am writing a book about a mystery
painting which was found many years ago having been dumped on a Sydney street
during a council "throw out" campaign. The painting is about two by
three feet, on an oak panel and bears a fake David Wilkie signature. The theory
I have developed is that it is identifiable with a painting titled The New Road to Matrimony; or the New
Marriage Act which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1823 by the
Eton artist William Ingalton.
Below I have provided biographical notes on
Ingalton, together with a catalogue raisonné of his works.
If anyone has any additional information at
all about this artist, or would like to correct any information below, I would
be most pleased to be contacted. My email address is:
Although Ingalton’s reputation has faded almost
into obscurity he was considered to be an important artist in Eton and Windsor
in the 1820s. Virtually the only
reference to him in books on British art is in A Chronological History of the Old English Landscape Painters by
Colonel Maurice Harold Grant, published 70 years ago in the 1930s. The Colonel summarised the situation this
way:
WILLIAM INGALTON (1794
- 1866)
Little enough is known
of him… From… 1816 until 1826 [his
work] consisted of mingled landscapes and rural and domestic genre, chiefly of
the middle size. But this exact decade
of production is all we hear of Ingalton as an artist. About I825… ill health turned Ingalton from
painter to architect, a curious reason indeed for conversion from a less
arduous profession to one more exacting.
Ingalton at any rate ceased to paint, but remained by the Thames, merely
changing residence from one bank to the other, from Eton across to Clewer. He had already foregathered much with the
painter-hermit of the vale, Edmund Bristow, even to the extent, we believe
(though facts are scarce), of receiving instruction from that most skilful and
unapproachable of artists…
Upon the art of
Ingalton there scarcely exists a painter of merit less known than he. His name and works alike appear to have
retired into oblivion as complete as if an aeon, instead of half a century, had
elapsed since his decease. Nor will his
revival prove in any way startling…
In Ingalton we have
merely one of the those quiet and simple painters of the scenery of the Thames
who are apt to be considered numerous until investigation discloses how few
there have really been of any distinction.
And to Ingalton distinction is certainly to be accorded, even if it be
only that of complete soberness and tranquillity. One of his little placid views about Windsor
would wait long for notice on the walls of an exhibition. Not one in ten of visitors would even
perceive it; but the examination of the tenth would be close and appreciative,
since he would surely be a man after Ingalton's own heart or he would not have
stopped to look at all…
His was rather the
harvest of a quiet eye, dwelling on the calm of that homely vale which is
England to nearly all Englishmen, the vale of the Thames. And he especially loved it when the windless
days of late Autumn invest it with that brown immobility which seems to be
scented with decaying water-plants and leaves smouldering in the bonfires of
unseen gardens… Beyond this restricted range Ingalton was at a loss…
But find him at his
best… and we begin to regret at once his early retirement from the art… A
little more of such work and Ingalton would have to bulk larger in our pages;
but such canvases… are very infrequent from his hand, and if they be his
masterpieces are yet insufficient [in number] to make a Master…
No comments:
Post a Comment