Edward Sherard Kennedy caricature: C.5B-1949

Titles

Edward Sherard Kennedy caricature

Maker(s)

Decorator: Barnard, Frederick

Entities

• Tile

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware
• Art Pottery

Description

Square white earthenware tile with over-glaze image painted in brown enamel.

A large, bearded man, wearing a loud check suit and a tiny top hat, is walking a dog-on-wheels down a street of tall brown buildings, above which chimneys smoke. Holding his hands on either side are two other men, their heads a similar size to his but their bodies very small, such that they are only half his height; they wear women’s dresses with neck bows and hats. The small man on the right is face-forward and smiling; he has a moustache and a small beard. The small man on the left has a long nose; he is dancing on one leg and looking up at the tall man, who is facing forward and winking. The initials 'ESK' are inscribed in script between them. The tile is industrially produced from pressed dust; on the reverse is an impressed diamond pattern. It is fixed in a (later) wooden frame and stand.

Notes

History note: Bequeathed by Miss Dorothy Barnard, the artist’s daughter

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Miss Dorothy Barnard, the artist’s daughter

Place(s) associated

• London ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1949) by Barnard, Dorothy

Dating

19th Century, Late#
Production date: circa AD 1880

Note

Fred(erick) Barnard (1846-96), the son of a silversmith, was an illustrator, caricaturist, genre painter and portraitist. After training in Paris, he contributed to journals, such as 'Punch', ‘Harper’s Weekly’ and the 'Illustrated London News' and became known as an illustrator of Dickens and Bunyan. He also showed large-scale canvasses at the Royal Academy which commented on urban social conditions; a reviewer greeted his ‘Saturday Night in the East End’, 1876, as amongst ‘the most remarkable illustrations of London low-life […] full of grime and flare, and of human uncouthness’. He settled for a time in Broadway, Gloucestershire, where John Singer Sargent painted his wife Alice Faraday (‘Mrs Frederick Barnard’, 1885), and his two daughters Polly and Dorothy (‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’, 1885-86) [Tate, nos. N05901 and N01615] , and his neighbours included Henry James and Edmund Gosse, the latter recording him wearing an ‘enormous stage slouch hat’. The Fitzwilliam Museum also holds a portrait of Dorothy Barnard, the donor, painted by Sargent in 1889.

One of a series of seven tiles, each depicting a fellow contemporary artist. This design is a caricature of Edward Sherard Kennedy (c.1837-1900), a genre, still life and portrait painter born in Camberwell, who worked for a time in Cornwall before returning to London. Kennedy exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Watercolour Society, his work including ‘Fading Away’ (Wellcome Library, no. V0017586) and, like Barnard, Dickens characters, such as ‘Mr Micawber’ Charles Dickens Museum, London. His wife, Florence Laing Kennedy was also a painter. According to a label attached on acquisition, the two smaller figures are models named Webber and Colman.

School or Style

Arts and Crafts (movement)