John Ritchie

titled and signed on an old label pasted on to the stretcher oil on canvas, unframed EXHIBITED Liverpool Academy, 1861, no. 481 CATALOGUE NOTE John Ritchie?s modern-life subjects are treated with notable sympathy for the hardships which people endured, and are apparently both objective and impartial. His careful observation of the condition and circumstances of men and women of the day makes him a most interesting and intriguing artistic figure. In his painting Life in the Backwoods , he shows a rustic family in their improvised woodland encampment. Seated at the centre of the group is a man who drinks from a cup and has spread before him a simple meal. Behind is a woman with a child in her arms whom she feeds from a bowl held by an older child. On each side of these figures stand a young man and a young woman, each wearing working clothes. A loaded hand-cart is seen in the background on the right. In the foreground is a basket and impedimenta, and on the right an iron pot heating on a campfire. No indication is given of how the family might be supported, nor whether they are indigent or living permanently in the forest. During the 1850s and ?60s many people were forced off the land because of falling grain prices and consequent agricultural depression. Ritchie seems to be here documenting the privations suffered by those who were dispossessed during this period of rural hardship. Ritchie is best known for his panoramic outdoor subjects A Summer Day in Hyde Park (Museum of London), and A Winter Day in St James?s Park (private collection), both of which were first shown at the Liverpool Academy in 1858. These offer a multiplicity of diverse social types, gathered together as a metaphor of the diversity and inter-relatedness of the elements of mid-Victorian society. The artist?s landscape settings are always well observed, and he seems to have had a particular fondness for the painting of trees and woodland settings. In A Summer Day in Hyde Park , close attention was paid to the different varieties of trees that form the background to the composition. In 1861, Ritchie showed a painting entitled The Shadow on the Tree ? a work which again displays the artist?s particular fondness for the textures of bark and foliage. Probably from about the same date, came the charming Extracting a Thorn (Sotheby?s, 26 March 2004, lot 61), in which a mother tends to a child who has injured himself while bird-nesting. In this painting, as in Life in the Backwoods and other works by the artist with arboreal themes, the variety of each tree is specified. Documentary information about John Ritchie is very limited. He first exhibited in Liverpool in 1849, sending a work entitled The Musical Cobbler from an address in Edinburgh. Whether or not he was Scottish by birth, he seems to have transferred to London by about 1853. His two remarkable London subjects of 1858 have already been referred to, but by the early 1860s, works were again sent to exhibitions in Liverpool from Edinburgh. Towards the end of his professional career, in the late 1860s and early ?70s, he appears once again to have been based in the south. In addition to showing at the Liverpool Academy, Ritchie also exhibited at the Royal Academy, but with an intermission of five years from 1862. It is quite possible that a work such as Life in the Backwoods , had previously been submitted to the Royal Academy, but was perhaps rejected by the selection committee. In its loving observation of colour and texture and in its utter sincerity of representation of an actual scene studied from life, and therefore as a work showing the influence of Pre-Raphaelitism, it was the type of painting that was discriminated against by an older generation of artists within the Academy. The Liverpool Academy, where it was in fact first displayed, was run in a more open-minded spirit, and on many occasions provided space for progressive paintings which had been previously refused in London. Life in the Backwoods has remained untraced since its first exhibition in 1856, and is a most interesting addition to the small corpus of works known by this obscure but fascinating artist. CSN

measurements measurements 20 by 30 in. alternate measurements 50.8 by 76.2 cm description signed and dated (maker's marks) signed with monogram r (lower left) artist's nationality british artist's dates active 1858-1875 material/medium oil on canvas provenance thomas laughton, esq. george rowney & co., london the leger galleries ltd., london (until june 21, 1966) purchased by h. p. kraus from the above

JOHN RITCHIE 1828 - 1905 THE INVENTOR 15,000—20,000 GBP 46 by 36cm., 18 by 14in. Description signed with initials l.r. oil on canvas Sotheby's, 22 March 1989, lot 151;Christopher Wood Gallery, London;Private collection

A woman washing pans in a kitchen Signed with initials "J.R.".

Watercolour & pastel on paper 29.5 x38.5 Signed Relative size Contact Us