Engraving
Maker & role
James Scott, Engraver; E. Prentis, Artist
Production date
1841
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Object detail
Title
Family Devotions - Morning
Production place
Collection
Measurements
Frame, H: 53 x W: 63cm (H: 530 x W: 630mm); Image, H: 45.5 x W: 56.5cm (H: 455 x W: 565mm)
Credit line
Gift, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, by The Downes Family, 2010
Elizabeth Bay House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Elizabeth Bay House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Family Devotions - Morning (1841)
Description
Engraving by James Scott after Edward Prentis, London, 1841, depicting a fashionable couple in the breakfast room of their villa, probably located in one of the suburbs surrounding an early Victorian metropolitan centre. A father, as head of the household, reads aloud from Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer to his attentive wife and small child, with two maids seated to the rear. The view contains a wealth of detail. One of a pair depicting domestic devotional scenes, the other entitled ‘evening devotions’ and set within a country house. Both works are in their in original bird’s eye maple veneer frames with glass.
Acquisitions for Elizabeth Bay House emphasise the early period of occupation by the Macleay family, from1839 to 1845, and where possible are based on documentary or physical evidence. The engravings ‘Family Devotions, Morning & Evening’ are provenanced to the Macleay family’s country property, Brownlow Hill, Cobbitty, and appear in an inventory of its contents drawn up in February 1859 for its owner George Macleay. The verso of this work is inscribed by George Macleay as a gift to Mrs Jeremiah Downes, the wife of his manager and the property’s later owner. Whereas the majority of the pictures at Brownlow are likely to have been from the collection of Alexander Macleay, relocated from Elizabeth Bay House in 1845, the date of these engravings (1841) suggests the possibility of Macleay’s younger son George (1809-1891) having been their original owner.
The genre scenes may be considered along with other records and remnants of the Macleay family’s art collection for what they reveal of the history of Taste. Genre painting, a revival of a Dutch 17th-18th tradition that typically used a wealth of detail to comment on the human condition, was a significant theme in the Scottish school of painting at the beginning of the nineteenth century as typified by the work of painters such as David Allen and Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841). Macleay was a member of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Scotland formed in 1833, which promoted artists’ work (including work in the genre tradition) through exhibitions and disseminating engravings. The subjects of the works are themselves significant for the insights they give into the Macleay family’s Tory conservative social and political views (the Tories being historically supportive of the Church of England).
With its wealth of finely observed incidental details - such as the crumb cloth on the floor, the hassock, the kettle boiling on the hob, the muffins on a trivet hooked onto the fender and vase arrangement on the chimney piece - this engraving has informed the interpretation of the Elizabeth Bay House breakfast room. Both this engraving and its pair are a valuable resource in thematic tours of the property, particularly as a visual aid in the explanation of property interpretation. The represented scenes are effective for explaining the changing role of male figures within the household and society, and to the changing role of the family within 19th century British and Colonial psychology and world views.
Acquisitions for Elizabeth Bay House emphasise the early period of occupation by the Macleay family, from1839 to 1845, and where possible are based on documentary or physical evidence. The engravings ‘Family Devotions, Morning & Evening’ are provenanced to the Macleay family’s country property, Brownlow Hill, Cobbitty, and appear in an inventory of its contents drawn up in February 1859 for its owner George Macleay. The verso of this work is inscribed by George Macleay as a gift to Mrs Jeremiah Downes, the wife of his manager and the property’s later owner. Whereas the majority of the pictures at Brownlow are likely to have been from the collection of Alexander Macleay, relocated from Elizabeth Bay House in 1845, the date of these engravings (1841) suggests the possibility of Macleay’s younger son George (1809-1891) having been their original owner.
The genre scenes may be considered along with other records and remnants of the Macleay family’s art collection for what they reveal of the history of Taste. Genre painting, a revival of a Dutch 17th-18th tradition that typically used a wealth of detail to comment on the human condition, was a significant theme in the Scottish school of painting at the beginning of the nineteenth century as typified by the work of painters such as David Allen and Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841). Macleay was a member of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Scotland formed in 1833, which promoted artists’ work (including work in the genre tradition) through exhibitions and disseminating engravings. The subjects of the works are themselves significant for the insights they give into the Macleay family’s Tory conservative social and political views (the Tories being historically supportive of the Church of England).
With its wealth of finely observed incidental details - such as the crumb cloth on the floor, the hassock, the kettle boiling on the hob, the muffins on a trivet hooked onto the fender and vase arrangement on the chimney piece - this engraving has informed the interpretation of the Elizabeth Bay House breakfast room. Both this engraving and its pair are a valuable resource in thematic tours of the property, particularly as a visual aid in the explanation of property interpretation. The represented scenes are effective for explaining the changing role of male figures within the household and society, and to the changing role of the family within 19th century British and Colonial psychology and world views.
Accession number
EB2010/2
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