Paul Constant Soyer

Paul Constant Soyer, Cottage Interior With Child Peeling Vegetables

c. 1870

This idyllic late 19th-century oil painting by English artist Edward William Cooke RA (1811-1880) depicts a west-country cove with two cottages, donkeys, figures, and fishing boats. Cooke was a highly renowned painter of marine scenes and landscapes who exhibited extensively at London’s Royal Academy. From our elevated vantage point, the view extends between two quaint cottages and across the beach before sweeping around the sandy coastline. Crystalline waters lap the shore, where moored craft rest. It’s an accomplished rendering of a challenging composition. It’s enhanced by trees, which essentially ‘frame’ the right side, while a wooded track provides interest on the left. Cooke was a keen admirer of the Dutch old masters, and the spirit of the Golden Age underpins this splendid work. In diaries, he recorded how he travelled by donkey to access elevated spots in the southwest, so it’s conceivable that he did so here. In his catalogue raisonné, it lists a work from the same year titled ‘Bay with Donkeys’. Born in Pentonville, London, Cooke was raised in the company of accomplished artists as both his father, George Cooke (1781-1834), and his uncle, William Bernard Cooke (1778-1855), were engravers. As such, they were associated with a circle of Victorian painters who aided Cooke’s early development. These included the highly regarded marine painter Clarkson Frederick Stanfield RA RBA (1793-1867), who provided frequent advice and inspiration. Indeed, as a teenager, Cooke produced numerous drawings after Stanfield’s works. A precocious talent, by the age of nine, he was already displaying an advanced understanding of engraving, particularly for ships, coupled with a natural, seemingly in-built skill as a draughtsman. Many of his early drawings depict pastoral landscapes after the masters, such as Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683), Paulus Potter (1625-1654), and Karel Dujardin (1626-1678). In an extraordinary turn of events, in 1820, his advanced abilities led to his first commission when he provided botanical illustrations for John Loudon's 'Encyclopaedia of Plants’. These were followed by drawings published in the 'Botanical Cabinet...

This endlessly charming mid-19th-century English oil painting depicts a rural scene with a family, cattle, pond, and cottage. A mother and child pause to observe a drover, perhaps f...

This charming 19th-century drawing by British artist Edmond Albert Joseph Tyrel de Poix (1840-1916) depicts a mother and child standing by a mill pond before a rustic watermill. De Poix was a gentleman artist descended from French nobility...

This mid-20th-century drawing by Russian artist Boris Sporykhin (1928-2020) depicts two girls reading within an interior. They also appear in an earlier oil painting, so it’s plausib...

Alfred Provis British, (1818-1890) By the Fireside Oil on canvas, signed & dated 1869 Image size: 10.5 inches x 15.5 inches Size including frame: 21.5 inches x 26.5 inches This charming cottage scene by Alfred Provis features a woman preparing supper by a fire with her young daughter. As the mother peels the turnips and places them in the pot, the girl’s attention is drawn to the kitten feeding from a saucer. The dress and hat of the woman bears a similarity to those found Provis’s other scenes of Welsh cottage interiors. The artist was known to have visited North Wales around the time this painting was produced. In 1869, he exhibited a work entitled ‘Interior of a Welsh Farmhouse’ at the Royal Society of British Artists. Given the level of detail in the painting and the fact that it is in such an impressive original frame, it is possible this is the same painting as the one exhibited. Alfred Provis was a genre painter born on 18 February, 1818 in Chippenham, Wiltshire. He was the son of John Provis, a timber merchant and his second wife Ann Banks. He spent time in London being tutored by the historical and portrait artist John Wood (1801-1870) before returning to Chippenham. He began exhibiting at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1843, continuing to exhibit there regularly until 1886. He made his debut at the Royal Academy in 1846 with a work entitled ‘A Cottage Door...

Haynes King British, (1831-1904) Family Life Oil on canvas, signed & dated 1869 Image size: 27.25 inches x 35 inches Size including frame: 41 inches x 48.75 inches Provenance: Edwar...

Quiet Reflection by the Window by Fanch Lel (French b. 1930) size: 8.5 x 7.5 inches oil painting on board, unframed condition: the painting is in very good condition. It has previous...

This is an original unique oil painting by the artist Bernard Pothast, signed in the lower right corner, featuring a mother and her children sitting around the kitchen table. Measure...