Add to Folder 
Email Mallett 
View PDF
Share 
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 61 x 85 inches / 154.9 x 215.9 cm
Framed: 69 x 92 ½ in / 175.3 x 234.9 cm
Signed "F. Wheatley pinxt" and dated "1793" (Webster, op. cit. infra, erroneously publishes the date as 1795)
Provenance: The artist's sale at his house at 14 Fitzroy Square, London, by Mr. Christie, January 13th 1795 (lot 55, sold for £17 10s. 0d);
James Daniell Esquire, his sale. Christies London 25th February 1809, lot 83 as "The Plowman (sic), from Gray's Elegy, landscape in the style of Gainsborough' (unsold at 12 guineas)
Christies 13 May 1960 (lot 39);
Christies 17th April 1964 (100);
Montagu Bernard (dealer) 1969;
Private collection, England, until present.
Exhibited: London, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, 1793, number 114 where entitled "Ploughing" (unsold at 20 guineas)
Literature: The Diary of Joseph Farington RA (Ed. Garlick and Mcintyre, Yale University Press 1978, volume II, p.291), under January 13th 1795: 'Wheatley's drawings and pictures were sold today. The pictures sold low. A large picture of Plough Horses in a frame which cost 20 Guineas (i.e. £21.00) sold for £17.10';
Sale Catalogue: A catalogue of all the Capital Pictures, Valuable Drawings and other curious articles, the property of FRANCIS WHEATLEY, Esq., RA at his house Situate, No. 14, on the West Side of RUSSELL PLACE, FITZROY SQUARE Which will be sold at Auction by MR CHRISTIE, On the premises, On Tuesday, January 13th, 1795, At Twelve o'Clock;
Mary Webster Francis Wheatley (Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art / Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), illustrated page 104; Catalogue of the Oil Paintings number 107, pages 150, text pages 201 and 206.
The last major work by the artist on this scale.
Francis Wheatley was born in London in 1747, and died in the same city in 1801. He was initially self-taught, but was subsequently trained at Shipley's Academy; he won Prizes for drawing at the Society of Artists in 1762-3, and was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools aged 22 in 1769. He worked as an assistant to the Royal Academist John Hamilton Mortimer in painting the Saloon ceiling at Brocket Hall in 1771-1773, and always acknowledged the profound debt he owed to his distinguished teacher. He exhibited pictures himself at the Society of Artists from 1765-1777, and was made a Director thereof in 1783. From 1778 onwards he exhibited regularly at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy, being made as Associate (ARA) in 1790 and a full member (RA) the following year.
Wheatley seems to have been incompetent with money, and was frequently in debt, despite numerous commissions. He moved from London to Dublin to escape his debtors from 1779 to 1783, and painted numerous highly accomplished paintings whilst there. His masterpiece of these years is the remarkable The Irish House of Commons, 1780, now in the City Art Gallery, Leeds, which depicts a vast series of faithful portraits of all the Members of Parliament in Dublin.
Wheatley was a versatile painter, executing straightforward portraits, conversation pieces, domestic and sentimental genre paintings and theatrical illustrations. He seems to have taken a particular interest in the depiction of rural life from the 1780's onwards, and executed such pictures as "The Industrious Cottager"; "The return from Market"; "The return from Shooting"; "Haymaking: a view near a wood"; "The Harvest Home"; "A Harvest Dinner" and "Evening, a Farmyard". The present painting is the culmination of this series and was painted in 1793. About this date the artist began to suffer from a debilitating attack of gout, which ultimately rendered him a cripple, virtually unable to hold a paint brush. The last few years of his life saw a distressing descent into poverty, though he was frequently helped by his fellow Royal Academicians. The onset of the Napoleonic Wars, and the consequent collapse in demand for art, added to his financial problems, and he was ultimately forced into the Debtors' Prison of The King's Bench. By the time of his death at the age of 54, he was an emaciated and wasted figure, incapable of caring for his wife and family of four children. His widow was granted a pension by the Academists until her own demise.
"Wheatley's life is strictly that of a hard working professional artist………." (Webster, p.113). "He was a handsome man, of elegant manners, and generally a favourite in genteel company. He understood his art, and spoke with taste and precision on every branch of it" (A Chalmers, Biographical Dictionary, 1817). He was "A very personable man, fond of dress, and polite in his manners, which makes him a great favourite with the ladies". (Obituary, Gentleman's Magazine 1801, p.857). All his contemporaries agreed, though, that his "habits of expense became too unbounded for his means" (Gandon, Life 1846, pp.207)
Wheatley at his best shows a remarkably fluidity and freedom of expression in his oil paintings: though his drawings are much more tightly controlled. Along with George Morland, he is the most accomplished English painter of the Rural Scene of his date; his range, though, is much wider than that of Morland, and some of his conversation pieces, for instance, rank with those of his friend and fellow-academist Johann Zoffany.
When re-offered for sale by Christies from the collection of James Daniell in 1809, the painting had taken on literary overtones, and was described as "from Gray's Elegy" with the "landscape in the style of Gainsborough". Whilst the painting indeed depicts a plough-team at the end of the day, it is not clear that it was intended by Wheatley as an illustration of Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) famous poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard":
"The Curfew bell tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me".
Certainly the tone and general setting apply, but there is no mention of this literary allusion in the Catalogue of the Academy in 1795, though other exhibited paintings by Wheatley do disclose their literary source. Certainly, too, the landscape painting has strong overtones of the late landscapes as Thomas Gainsborough, but overall it seems likely that this is no more than an auctioneer's "puff" to promote a painting up for sale.