Joseph Clark Portrait Paintings

This lovely British Victorian genre oil painting is by noted artist Joseph Clark. Painted in 1881 it is a charming composition of three young children playing with a doll on the floor of a cottage by the hearth. Historically it has been entitled Children at Play but also known as Playing Doctors according to the literature. There is lovely colouring and detail. A very sweet British Victorian genre oil painting by a much collected artist. Signed and dated 1881 lower right. Provenance. Joseph Clark ; A Popular Victorian Artist and his Work by Eric Galvin. Plate 23. Children at Play (1881) Page 132f. Condition. Oil on canvas, 29 inches by 22 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in a gilt frame, 36 inches by 29 inches and in good condition. Joseph Clark (1834-1926) was born near Dorchester, Dorset. He studied painting in London under J. M. Leigh (1808-1860), who was himself the only pupil of William Etty, RA (1787-1849), the celebrated painter of classical and historical subjects. Clark specialised in depicting domestic genre subjects of a tender nature which generally featured children and he also painted a small number of biblical subjects. In 1857 at the age of twenty three he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy and he continued to exhibit there for all but two of the subsequent forty seven years. Many Victorian painters sought to demonstrate their social conscience through emphasising in their paintings the importance of family life and Joseph Clark was no exception. Whilst avoiding the overly sentimental style of some of his contemporaries, he frequently chose subjects which sought to remind people of their good fortune in having a caring family at a time when many children grew up as orphans in workhouses. Clark enjoyed considerable success with his paintings, maintaining both a London house and a home in the country for much of his life. In 1876 he was awarded a medal in Philadelphia for his paintings 'The Sick Child...