CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (BRITISH 1794-1859), THE MOTHER'S HOPE

CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (BRITISH 1794-1859)THE MOTHER'S HOPEOil on canvas73 x 58cm (28½ x 22¾in.)Provenance:Sir Francis Freeling, Bart, by 1835Mr Grundy, by 1852Thomas Waite, Esq., by 1855Foster & Son, 16 May 1855Mr Phillips, New Bond Street, London, November 1857The late John Farnworth, Esq. of Woolton, LiverpoolHis sale, Christie’s, London, 18 May 1874, lot 71, where purchased by CarrThe late John Farnworth, Esq. of Woolton, LiverpoolHis sale, Christie’s, London, 19 July 1890, lot 127, where purchased by Polak JrA. & J. Polak, Manchester (according to label verso)Private collection, UKExhibited:London, Royal Academy, 1833, no. 138 (as 'Mother and Child')London, Mr Grundy, Regent Street, his Exhibition, Winter 1852Literature:Old England, 5 May 1833, p. 6Albion and the Star, 13 May 1833, p. 3Arnold’s Magazine of the Fine Arts, vol. no. 2, June 1833, p. 189Gentleman’s Magazine, 1833, p. 445Arnold’s Magazine of the Fine Arts, 1834, p. 547Art Journal, vol. 2, 1856, p.74Men of the Time - Biographical Sketches of Eminent Living Characters, 1856, p. 477This is a charming domestic scene of a beautiful young mother dancing and snapping her fingers to thedelight of her young child seated in an armchair and watched over by a devoted nurse. Emerging fromthe tradition of David Wilkie and painted in 1833 in the late Georgian era, Leslie’s picture looks towardsthe early Victorian narrative subjects focusing on home life, domestic harmony and above all theirchildren, given the high rate of infant mortality.The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833 (no. 138) with the title Mother and Child andmuch admired. Two years later it was engraved by Charles Rolls under the title The Mother’s Hope andreproduced in The Amulet, edited by S. C. Hall, 1835 (followed by verses by Laman Blanchard). It wassubsequently reproduced in the German publication Helena in 1838 with the title in English, Germanand French. Thereafter it appears to have kept the title The Mother’s Hope.Not surprisingly the subject of family life was a common theme running through all late Georgian andearly Victorian story and genre pictures. Leslie himself was very much a family man, marrying in 1825and fathering six children. The composition is flawlessly rendered with great attention to detail andtouches of eye-catching colour – the pink sash around the slender waist of the young mother, the redshoes on her dainty dancing feet complementing the baby’s red outfit. The mother’s exuberance suggeststhe child is her firstborn – this is endorsed by the subsequent title The Mother’s Hope. The baby with itsanimated expression looks up at its mother in delight with chubby arms outstretched and one irresistiblefoot extended. The interior of the room is carefully depicted with a canopied bed and furniture includinga papier mâché floral painted tilt top table and a handsome embroidered French armchair upon which thebaby is seated. Nothing has been avoided, even the ceiling has been treated with great observation.On the green and gold patterned carpet lies a silver rattle with bells, whistle and coral handle, perhapstossed aside by the baby preferring the mother’s animated performance. A traditional object for centuries,these rattles are referred to in many Elizabethan inventories. They functioned as a special toy with thewhistle and bells made of silver. The coral handle was used as a soothing teether and was thought to wardoff evil spirits and disease.Leslie continued with the theme of maternal love and in 1846 he received a commission from JohnGibbons, Esq., one of his patrons, to paint Mother and Child (Private collection) in which he conveysthe inseparable loving bond, and once again we see the reappearance of the coral rattle on the carpet.This painting Mother and Child of 1846 (the original title of the present work in 1833) was commissionedby James Lenox as a variant of the composition in 1849 and called The Mother’s Return to her Child. Thuswe know Leslie repeated similar titles and variants of compositions throughout his career, often returningto this theme.Although born in London in 1794, Charles Robert Leslie spent most of his childhood in America. Dueto financial constraints, he was unable to study as an artist but for seven years from the age of fourteenhe was apprenticed to the publishers Messrs Bradford and Inskeep in Philadelphia. Samuel Bradford, oneof the partners in the firm, and also a director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, recognisedLeslie’s talent and helped raise the funds for him to study in London, promoting the young artist’s workas well as making his own contribution.Armed with a letter of introduction to the President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West (himselffrom Pennsylvania), Leslie arrived in England in December 1811. He received tuition from West,and his former student Washington Allston (another fellow American) and enrolled in the RoyalAcademy Schools in 1813. His early work focused on history painting much in the same vein as hismentors. However, he subsequently favoured genre scenes, often from popular literary texts, along thelines of those so successfully painted by the Scottish artist David Wilkie (1785-1841). Although Wilkiewas less than a decade older than Leslie, he met an untimely death at sea off the coast of Gibraltar at theage of 55. Leslie’s focus away from history paintings towards smaller literary subjects also tapped intothe increased purchasing power of the growing middle-classes. In addition, he was also a fine portraitistand painted half-length portraits to support himself and further his reputation. His notable sittersincluding Sir Walter Scott and John Constable, who was a close friend. An early patron was the 3rd Earlof Egremont, and like Turner, Leslie frequently stayed at Petworth House in Sussex.Leslie was elected a Royal Academician in 1826 and by this stage decided not to return America. This decision may in part have been influenced by meeting Londoner Harriet Honor Stone, his bride-to-be, sometime before 1824. They were married in 1825 and produced six children including their second son, Sir Bradford Leslie (1831-1926), the renowned civil engineer and pupil of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and youngest son George Dunlop Leslie, R.A. (1835-1921), the successful genre painter and illustrator. In 1833, the year the present work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, Leslie made an unexpected return to America for a short time. Without his knowledge, Leslie’s only brother Tom had arranged for him to take up the post of Professor of Drawing at the Military Academy of West Point in upstate New York. A report in Old England (14 July 1833) decried the loss of ‘the admirable painter’ Leslie fearing the temptation of an annual income of £300 would entice him to emigrate: ‘Mr Leslie, confessedly at the head of his profession, and an artist who has won “golden opinions from all sorts of men”, is about to leave the country, in all probability for ever…’ After some deliberation and consultation with his loyal patron the 3rd Earl of Egremont, Leslie accepted the position, arriving in early November with his wife and children. However, after enduring the winter in which his wife fell ill, they returned to England in mid April 1834 after only five months.In addition to painting, Leslie was a prolific writer and after Constable’s death, he wrote the first biography of the artist, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843). Further books followed, including his Handbook for Young Painters (1854) based on his lectures as Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, 1847-1852. A biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds was left unfinished at Leslie’s death in May 1859.Through the influence of his patrons Henry Richard Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and Lady Holland, Leslie was admitted to Westminster Abbey to witness the young Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838. Following this important event, he began a picture which the Queen subsequently commissioned, choosing