Sketch for A Royal Musician [Princess Receiving Ambassadors], by David Wilkie Wynfield (1837-1887). c.1882. Oil on canvas laid onto a wooden panel. 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches (18.3 X 16.8 cm). Private collection. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This is the oil sketch for a painting that Wynfield exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882, no. 830, accompanied by the following quotation in the catalogue: "When her grace in such wise showed herself to them in entertaining them with most goodly countenance, proper communication, and pleasant pastime, in playing on the virginals, that they greatly marvelled at the same, her tender age considered." The painting shows the Princess Mary Tudor receiving an embassy of ambassadors during the absence of her father, King Henry VIII. The oil sketch has been included in this section of Wynfield's paintings to show that he followed in the academic tradition, adopted by many of his contemporaries, in including an oil sketch as part of his preparation towards a finished painting. The current location of the finished painting is unfortunately unknown but it was illustrated in Blackburn's Academy Notes in 1882.
Wood engraving, published in Academy Notes, 1882 (see Blackburn 70). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The finished painting follows the oil sketch quite closely, although the left foreground has been simplified, an extra figure has been added to the far right of the group on the right-hand side of the composition, and the foreground has been considerably altered in the final composition. The finished painting was 42 x 58 inches in size.
The paintings that Wynfield exhibited from 1860s onwards generally dealt with medieval or Renaissance themes, especially scenes from English sixteenth and seventeenth century history, and this oil sketch is no exception. Subjects taken from the Tudor period were of particular interest to Wynfield from the beginning to the end of his career, including Rival Queens of 1863, The Last Days of Elizabeth of 1865, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn of 1865, Anne Boleyn and Percy of 1866, The Arrest of Anne Boleyn at Greenwich of 1872, Queen Elizabeth and Essex of 1875, and At Traitor's Gate of 1880.
When the finished painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1882 it failed to generate much excitement amongst the critics and was not widely reviewed. F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum considered it amongst the class of painting at that year's Academy he disapproved of: "This specimen is one of an increasing class in the Academy exhibitions, mere sketches made into pictures by dint of large canvases, broad frames, and sounding titles" (672).
Note
One wonders if the Spanish painter Ricardo Anckermann was in London in 1882 and viewed the Royal Academy exhibition because he is certainly known to have spent time in London. The composition of his 1884 painting The Councillors of Barcelona Petitioning Alfonso V for a Royal Charter to Establish a University in the Capital of the Principality of Catalonia in 1450 is remarkably similar to Wynfield’s A Royal Musician. Anckermann’s painting is now in the collection of The University of Barcelona. — Scott Thomas Buckle
Bibliography
Blackburn, Henry. Academy Notes, London: Chatto & Windus, 1882.
The Councillors of Barcelona. University of Barcelona. http://www.ub.edu/visitavirtual/visitavirtualEH/index.php/en/get-to-know-the-university-of-barcelona/a-history-of-the-university-of-barcelona/from-its-origins-to-the-barcelona-estudi-general-1450/339-creation-of-the-university
Stevens, Frederic George. "The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2848 (27 May 1882): 672-74.
Created 14 December 2023