I came across something
that I can only describe as astounding recently when going through a
bound volume of the Leek Times for 1875. What caused me to be
dumbfounded was the description of an art exhibition that took place
in April of that year. The venue was the West Street School Rooms and
I can probably safely say that at no other moment in Leek’s history
has so much cultural and monetary value been amassed in one place. At
the opening of the exhibition the report in the Leek Times said that
no opening speeches were made but it may have been that the first
visitors were simply amazed at the spectacle. The paper gave a list
of the artists whose work was being shown at West St over the next
weeks.
It reads like a list
of the most greatest western artists of the last 400 years
Michaelangelo,Correggio,Rembrandt,Jan Steen; Reynolds, Gainsborough
and others are programmed as having canvasses at the exhibition.
There are etchings and
sketches by Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner and Hollar
There was also very
high quality sculpture and pottery on display
The works were
selected principally from the galleries of the local gentry but also
borrowed pieces from the South Kensington Museum which is now better
known as the Victoria and Albert Museum. The named contributors to
the exhibition included such local worthies as Mrs Bradshaw, Mrs
Crusoe, Joshua Nicholson, Mr George Wardle, WS Brough, Hugh Sleigh,
William Challioner, Miss Condlyffe, Mrs Argles, Major Brocklehurst,
Miss Van Tuyl, and Miss Gaunt
The painting that the
reviewer is most demonstrative about is a canvas by a Dutch artist
David Teniers the Elder (1582-1649) called “Peasants Merry Making”
the writer is very impressed that the painting had been valued at
£3000 in 1870. It was in his words “wonderfully coloured” and
painted in 1650 when the artist was working in Brussels. I have
attempted through Google to try to find out what happened
subsequently to the art since appearing in Leek 132 years ago. That
picture can now be seen in the National Gallery in London it was
and presented to gallery in 1948 by John Hanbury Martin. Teniers who
was the head of a dynasty of painters was the most famous artist of
rustic life and very popular in his life time and beyond when many
were purchased by the great houses of England and France in the
decades that followed his death.
It is also interesting
to reflect on the impact of inflation on the price of art since the
days of the Mid Victorians. To give you an idea a Salomon Van
Ruysdael another 17th century artist represented at the
Leek exhibition sold for $3 million in New York in February this
year.
The reviewer
obviously liked his rural scenes as another picture to get a rave
review is a drawing of cattle by George Morland a very popular London
born artist of the mid 19th century who has now largely
lapsed into obscurity. The Leek Times expends a great deal of ink
celebrating the art of the unheard of Morland but infuriatingly
hardly mentions a portrait by the “immortal” Rembrandt.
The 18th
century artist and founder of the Royal Academy Joshua Reynolds is
represented in the exhibition by two canvasses one is a portrait of
the poet Goldsmith who was one of the 18th century
artist’s closest friends. It now sits in the National Gallery of
Ireland in Dublin and the other is of a clergyman.
Antonio da Correggio’s
1489-1534 the principle artist of the Parma school of the Italian
renaissance and responsible for some of the most vigorous and
sensuous works of the 16th century is in the exhibition
with his” Holy Family” painting
A contemporary artist
shown at West Street in 1875 was one of the founding members of the
Pre Raphaelite School Arthur Hughes who would have been 51 in that
year. His illustrations of the Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden was
displayed. I wonder as a example of idle speculation whether William
Morris a principle figure in the moment and living in Leek at the
time might have stared at the work as he knew Hughes through a mutual
friend Rossetti
Perhaps the canvas
that had the strongest connection with Leek in an oblique way was the
March to Finchley by Hogarth. The painting which currently resides at
the Coram Foundation- the London based children’s charity is based
on a real historical event that Hogarth witnessed in December 1745
when British troops marched 10 miles out of London to rendezvous on
Finchley Common to face the invading Highland Scots lead by Bonnie
Prince Charlie. At the time Hogarth was observing the amassing force
165 miles away the advancing Scots were in Leek. This was nearly the
limit of their advance and they retreated soon as they reached Derby
when resources and supply lines had reached a limit. The British Army
set off in pursuit of the retreating Highlanders pausing to receive
the grateful thanks of the leading citizenry in Leek later that
month. They caught up with the Scots at Culloden to smash the army
and the clan system with it the following April. When he painted the
picture in 1749 the danger was well past and Hogarth could afford to
treat the subject in a light hearted and relaxed way mocking gin
soaked soldiery as they headed north
There was also pottery
lent by Minton’s of Stoke and Doulton of Lambeth. Mrs Cruso donated
a Dresden vase with landscape and Morris of London contributed ware
again I wonder if William Morris approved. Amongst other pottery was
a Vase decorated by Louis Solon a French pottery who was beginning to
make a reputation for himself having recently arrived in the country
after fleeing war in France.
There was also a
Bronze of St John the Baptist by Ghiberti of Florence dated 1412. I
wondered if it is the same bronze which is now in now in the
Orsonmichele in Florence? Ghiberti first became famous when he won
the competition to design the doors of the bronze doors of the
baptistery in 1401 described by Michelangelo as being “worthy of
the gates of paradise”. This event is thought by art historian to
have been the start of the Renaissance
The journalist covering
the event over three weeks of the Times wrote glowingly about the
Embroidery exhibition
“We think the time is
not far off when English Ladies will be spend their spare hours in
placing on our fabrics productions of their own minds or designs of
the great masters of design and colour
We must not forget to
look at three needlework pictures found near the embroidery, relics
of better taste than of the cross stitch age, two of them being
worked by Miss Condlyffe and one lent by Miss Sutton, they are well
worked in the style of the old tapestries”
During the whole week
the exhibition has been visited by large amounts of people and this
has induced the management to keep the exhibition open by an extra
week. £40 was spent on bringing the exhibition to Leek
Music was heard at the
exhibition including a performance by the band of the Rifle
Volunteers.
The reporter ended his
report by praising the organisers of the exhibition and even from a
distance of over a hundred years I can only marvel at the range of
material that these three men helped to bring to Leek. I do wonder
about the security and I have a vision of the Rembrandts and the rest
travelling to Leek wrapped in brown paper and travelling in the
Guards van.
“Mr Thomas Wardle, WS
Brough and John S Winfield must be especially pleased that there
arduous labour and untiring perseverance has achieved a success which
a week after the exhibition seemed impossible.”
The exhibition had
been poorly attended to start with and the committee had thought of
making the exhibition free however on the fourth day the number of
visitors increased and at the end the exhibition made £25
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