Robert Huskisson 1819-1861

Robert Huskisson is the example of an enormously talented and spirited painter with great promise for the future, whose life was tragically short. Therefore his ouevre was relatively small and few important works by him survive. Born Robert Locking Huskinson at Langar in Nottinghamshire, he was the son of a local portrait painter Henry Huskinson. At the age of twenty, Huskinson had moved to London, changed his name to Huskisson and begun to exhibit at the Royal Academy. One of Huskisson's best known projects was to produce illustrations to the work of the wife of the prolific author and editor of The Art Journal Samuel Carter Hall, Midsummer Eve: A Fairy Tale of Love of 1848, to which Noel Paton, Clarkson Stanfield, Thomas Creswick and William Frost all contributed. The paintings of Huskisson fit neatly among the great fairy extravaganzas of Noel Paton, such as The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania and The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania (both at The National Gallery of Scotland), with a little of the naughtiness of William Frost's nudes.

Huskisson was particularly drawn to the narrative of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and painted several illustrations of Titania's elves and fairies. A Midsummer Night's Dream was the most popular of all fairy tales in the Ninteenth Century and offered endless opportunities for artists with a flamboyant conception of the fairy-world. Titania's Elves Robbing the Squirrel's Nest shows the great humour and energy which can be found in the best work of Huskisson and comparable artists such as Noel Paton and Richard Dadd, who similarly populated their Shakespearean subjects with the mischevious elfin-folk and fairy-nymphs. In his book Fairies in Victorian Art, Christopher Wood illustrates another similarly lively composition, the group of lissome nudes dancing on the shore which illustrate the line from The Tempest Come Unto These Yellow Sands and also a dramatic but rather theatrical The Midsummer Fairies - There Sleeps Titania, (versions at Tate Britain and in a private collection). Huskisson was one of the first artists to concentrate upon the subject of fairies in art, a subject which became such a popular and important genre in later years.

William Powell Frith recalled his meeting with Huskisson at a dinner given by Lord Northwick at Thirlestane Manor in Cheltenham. Huskisson, Frith admitted 'had painted some original pictures of considerable merit' but unkindly described the artist as 'a very common man, entirely uneducated. I doubt if he could read or write. The very tone of his voice was dreadful'. Frith's prejudiced words were no doubt true to some extent, but as the present work shows, Huskisson's art was far from uneducated, despite his lack of refinement to which the snobbish Frith took such offence. The figure drawing is similar and equal to that of his contemporary William Edward Frost and recalls the work of William Etty whose painting of The Rape of Proserpine Huskisson had painted a replica for Lord Northwick. Etty recalled that Northwick had asked Huskisson 'was it not a picture dealer who bought your last 'Fairy' picture?" "No, my Lord!", replied Huskisson, "It was a gent." That Huskisson's origins were humble there is little doubt and he appears to have had a Northamptonshire accent, however letters in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles prove that Frith was quite unjust in his description of Huskisson, who was far from uneducated. Huskisson's art alone is testimony to his refinement and intelligence, the composition of Titania's Elves Robbing the Squirrel's Nest being highly intelligent in its arrangement of tumbling joyous figures spilling in and out of the shadows as they flee the wrath of the furious squirrel.

Titania's Elves Robbing the Squirrel's Nest is possibly the last picture exhibited by the artist at the Royal Academy in 1854, described by the Art Journal as follows; 'This is the fulfillment of Titania's promise to her beloved Bottom, although he declared his preference for a handful of dried peas to the sweet nuts- "I have a venturous fairy that shall seek, The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts." We see here, accordingly, the fairy's coachmaker very much astounded at the dispersion of his hoard, which take wings to themselves and fly away. The idea is carried out with all the poetic taste with which this artist qualifies his works. The spirit of the picture coincides with that of the verse; and the description of the riotous mirth of the elves at the success of their plundering expedition is most ingenious.' ( Art Journal, 1854, p. 168). It is difficult to be sure whether or not this version of Titania's Elves is the one exhibited at the Academy as the same composition is known to exist in several versions. An oil on board of slightly smaller dimensions, formerly owned by Dr Jerrold Northrop Moore, is illustrated in Jeremy Maas' Victorian Painters (p. 153) and was sold at Sotheby's in Belgravia on the 20th November 1973 as lot 59. Another version, also on board (13 1/2 by 16 1/4 inches) was offered at Sotheby's New York on 29th February 1984, lot 234 and a third version painted on canvas (25 3/4 by 30 1/2 inches) was sold by Sotheby's in London on 9th June 1993, lot 191. The largest version on canvas, was sold from the collection of the late Humphrey Brooke, the long-standing Secretary of the Royal Academy from 1952.