Circle of Fred MORGAN (1847-1927) c1890
A sensitively painted portrait, possibly a study for a larger work, of a young country girl. Indistinctly signed ** Morgan, possibly Fred. Unfortunately Fred signed in a number of different ways depending on the grandeur of his work. However, a consistent element was the colour, a reddish brown similar to the colour of the signature on this painting. I can offer no provenance with this painting, so I am selling at as circle of Morgan rather than actually by him.
“Frederick Morgan ROI was an English painter of portraits, animals, domestic and country scenes. He became known for his idyllic genre scenes of childhood.
Morgan was born in London to John Morgan and his wife, Henrietta Hester Clare. His father was a successful genre artist sometimes known as 'Jury Morgan' (after one of his paintings The Gentlemen of the Jury). At the age of 14, he was taken out of school by his father who then tutored him in art. At the age of 16, while still studying with his father, his first picture, The Rehearsal, was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and, after a hiatus of several years, his paintings were shown there regularly. For a while he worked as a portrait artist for an Aylesbury photographer; this training proved to be crucial as it "taught him how to observe closely and to give the greatest attention to detail."
Eventually he turned to other subjects for his art, in particular idyllic genre scenes of country life and childhood. For many years, starting in 1874, Thomas Agnew & Sons' purchased all the work he produced.
Although an excellent portrait artist, Morgan had problems in depicting pets and barnyard animals - he enlisted the aid of either Arthur John Elsley...
Category
1890s English School Figurative Paintings