Thanks to Scott Thomas Buckle and Osmund Bullock for their pioneering work identifying the authorship and the title of this painting on Art Detective.
Summer Hours, by David Wilkie Wynfield (1837-1887). 1861. Oil on canvas. 11 3/8 x 9 1/2 inches (29 x 24 cm). Collection of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, accession no. MIDMA/FA/0249. Image reproduced via Art UK for the purpose of non-commercial research. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Summer Hours was exhibited at the British Institution in 1862, no. 618. It shows that Wynfield, like most of his colleagues in the St. John's Wood Clique, went through a phase of being influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. In this particular case works by D. G. Rossetti, such as his Paolo and Francesca, appear to have had the major impact. Summer Hours features two young lovers dressed in the costumes of the Italian Renaissance and framed between two decorative marble pillars. The woman is likely reading poetry from a book, while her male companion gazes lovingly at her. She is seated on a white marble bench strewn with roses, likely brought by her companion. The coat of arms on the bench is that of the Wynfield family, "Vert, on a bend argent three crosses patonce sable." The small crescent at the top of the escutcheon is a mark of cadency, and indicates that Wynfield must have been a second son (Bullock, Art Detective).
In his review of the British Institution exhibition the critic of The Art Journal disliked how the two figures were grouped: "Not only is Summer Hours (no. 618) Italian in the costume and character of its figures, but also in the spirit of the painting. It contains a pair of lovers seated on a stone bench, but divided by the slab that serves as the common back for both sides. A better composition, we submit, would have resulted from grouping the two in this side" (71). F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum merely commented: "Mr. D. W. Wynfield's Summer Hours (618), two lovers conversing on a marble garden-seat, is cleverly sketched and well composed" (231).
Bibliography
"Could this be an early work by David Wilkie Wynfield?" Art Detective. Art UK. Web. 12 December 2023.
"The British Institution." The Art Journal New Series I (1 March 1862): 69-72.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The British Institution." The Athenaeum No. 1790 (15 February 1862): 230-31.Created 12 December 2023