David Wilkie Wynfield, (British, 1837-1887)

The New Curate

The New Curate
signed and dated 'D. W. Wynfield/1876' (lower right)
oil on canvas
88.5 x 140cm (34 13/16 x 55 1/8in).

Provenance
Private collection, Italy.

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1876, no. 101.
Paris, Universal Exposition, 1878.

Literature
Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1878, vol. 1, p. 62.
The Art Journal, 1880, New York, D. Appleton & Co. Publishers, vol. 6, p. 121.

David Wilkie Wynfield painted and exhibited historical and literary subjects at the Royal Academy from 1859. His great uncle and godfather was the Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie. Wynfield was born in India in 1837 and after his family moved back to London in 1856, he enrolled at the art school run by James Mathew Leigh.

He became associated with the St John's Wood Clique, a group of artists who would meet regularly to discuss the ideas explored in their practice. Notably, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, George Dunlop Leslie and Henry Stacy Marks were members. Wynfield became interested in photography and developed a technique of shallow-focus portrait photography. Among those he captured were Frederic Leighton, George Frederic Watts, Simeon Solomon and Alphonse Legros.

In the present lot, the artist depicts a welcome tea party for the new curate. The curate, positioned to the left of the composition, slightly back from the table, is politely engaged and inclined forward, as the mother surveys closely. Her two daughters, beautifully attired, admire from the other end of the table.

The painting was well received and exhibited not only at the Royal Academy but then at the Paris Exposition two years later, the same year as William Powell Frith's renowned exhibit The Derby Day. A description of the present lot, by the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, reads as follows: 'Among the scenes of ordinary life and family interiors, may be mentioned The New Curate by Mr. D. W. Wynfield, which is an elaborate representation of a very commonplace subject, painted with extreme clearness and precision, but with a certain quiet sense of humor and character'.

Another contemporary review of the work - in The Art Journal - confirms the significance of a new curate in an English country village and how in the present depiction, the curate under 'the very penetrating glances of this sweet-looking matron and her bright-eyed daughters...bears the ordeal unflinchingly'. The review continues: 'The chief characteristics of the picture are truthfulness and simplicity; nothing is either exaggerated or out of harmony. Mr. Wynfield has wisely adhered closely to his subject, and the interest is in no way divided, the accessories being as unobtrusive and free from extravagance as the whole subject. A more pleasant and homelike picture of English country life could not readily be seen. Mr. Wynfield's well-earned reputation as a healthy realist painter is thoroughly sustained'.

The present lot was engraved by Herbert Bourne (1820-1907) and printed by D. Appleton & Co., New York. The engraving was illustrated in The Graphic, volume XIII, no. 346, 15 July 1876.