Robert Huskisson

J.S. Maas, London;
Bought by The Rt. Hon. Alan and Mrs Clark

London, Maas Gallery, Exhibition of Victorian Fairy Paintings, 1978, no. 18;
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, Fairy Exhibition, 1980

The canvas has been lined. A craquelure pattern across the surface, a spot of surface dirt near lower left edge. Ultraviolet light reveals an some minor flecks of retouching to the figures and a few further flecks in the background. Held in an arched gilt composite frame.
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The present painting presumably represents a first compositional scheme for a similarly arch-shaped subject entitled The Midsummer Night’s Fairies (Tate) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847 with a full title which included part of Oberon’'s speech to Puck as quoted above. The moment represented in each is the same, and scale of figures comparable; however, the composition in the Tate version has been re-arranged with the sleeping Titania moved to the left side and the foreground occupied by a battle between a snail and a group of fairy soldiers. A further version of the subject, given the title Titania Asleep, was part of the distinguished collection of Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read, and was later in the Forbes Magazine collection (Christie’s, 19 February 2003, lot 2).

The Royal Academy exhibit and the Handley-Read version of the present subject, each of which incorporate painted proscenium arches with grisaille figures, have the distinctive crisp handling which Huskisson seems to have devised on the basis of study of other painters of fairy subjects. The present study is more richly handled and with a painterly quality that lends itself well to the nocturnal subject and the luminosity of the figures and the flowers. The choice of subject furthermore reveals Huskisson'’s knowledge of Dadd'’s work. In 1841 Dadd had exhibited his own Titania Sleeping (Musée du Louvre, Paris), the success of which had established that painter’'s reputation. Huskisson'’s debt to Dadd’'s original may be seen in the luminescent spotlighting of the figure of Titania and her attendant fairies, the placing of Oberon in the shadowed background, and the use of an arch-shaped composition to allude to the subject’s origin on a stage and within a proscenium arch. Patricia Allderidge has suggested that Dadd saw the engraving of Huskisson’'s Titania Sleeping that appeared in the Art Union in 1848 after his imprisonment following his murder of his father, citing among other borrowings from Huskisson’s image the treatment of the male figure in his subject Sketch of the Passions. Hatred (Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudley Hospital), of 1853, as dependent on Huskisson’s figure of Oberon (see The Late Richard Dadd, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, 1974, p.88).

Robert Huskisson, who had been born in Nottingham, and seems to have been trained as an artist by his father who was a provincial portrait painter, Henry Huskinson (as the family name had previously been spelt), and was living in London, sharing accommodation with his brother Leonard, by the late 1830s. Although Huskisson remains a shadowy figure, known principally for his delightful fairy subjects, mention should be made of his (if it is in fact by the same Robert Huskisson) oil subject Lord Northwick’'s Picture Gallery at Thirlstaine House (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven), which is usually dated to c.1846-7, and which shows extraordinary skill in the replication of the contents of the interior. However, S.C. Hall’s prediction of Huskisson’'s destiny proved illusory; for some reason he ceased to exhibit in 1854, perhaps because of ill health, and in 1861, aged only forty-two, he died. No obituary was published in the Art Journal (successor to the Art Union), so it must be assumed that Huskisson had even by that time sunk into obscurity. His modern reputation owes much to the pioneering investigations of the late Jeremy Maas. Huskisson was represented by four works in the Royal Academy’'s 1997 exhibition Victorian Fairy Painting, the first of these being the Tate'’s The Midsummer Night’s Fairies.

Over the period from November 2014 until February 2015 a number of select pieces will be offered by Sotheby's London from the Clark family collection: an initial from a medieval choir book (contact Mara.Hoffmann@sothebys.com); a Robert Adam book on Diocletian's palace from the Kimbolton Castle Library (Roger.Griffiths@sothebys.com); Victorian pictures by Huskisson, Alma-Tadema, Nicol and Richmond (Simon.Toll@sothebys.com); a Meissen model of the Gellert Monument and a documentary Derby goat by Willems (Richard.Hird@sothebys.com); a 15th Century mother-of-pearl roundel (Erik.Bijzet@sothebys.com); a brass ring by Alexander Calder being offered by our New York Contemporary Department (Katherine.Trezza@sothebys.com); a Moore, Piper and Nolan within the Modern British auction (Simon.Hucker@sothebys.com); and a Cezanne, Bonnard and Miro within the February 2015 Impressionist auctions (Eva.Donnerhack@sothebys.com). There is also a silver marriage schauguldiner coin being offered by Sotheby's associates Morton & Eden (james@mortonandeden.com).