FDA-P.52-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-P.52-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
Eton Boys Going to Montem
The Montem Procession
The Montem Procession
Title Type
Common name
assigned by cataloguer
assigned by cataloguer
Description
Large, framed oil-on-canvas painting
Comments
At the Eton Loan Exhibition of 1891, held at Eton to celebrate 450 years since the foundation of the College, this work was lent by Messrs. T. Maple and Co. It is described in the exhibition catalogue as follows:
'Eton Montem. By R. Livesay. h ft. by 3 ft. 6 in., unfinished. Painted between 1791 and 1796.
Livesay was drawing master to the children of George III., and was made drawing master to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1796.
A long picture, unfinished ; a procession of boys advancing to the right, with spectators behind them, containing finished portraits. A blank space in the centre seems to have been reserved for the principal group. Figures on horseback left incomplete.
The completion of the picture was probably hindered by the painter's removal to Portsmouth.'
This painting represents an unfinished project by the artist. As James Lawrence (1773–1840) wrote:
'"Every master and every scholar was to figure in it; and he began by taking every portrait separately, to be transferred at his leisure to the scene of action [. . .] The artist, not only desirous of the Royal Patronage, but of the permission of introducing their Majesties into his picture, sallied up to Windsor with several of these portraits, and requested an audience."
Royal consent was evidently forthcoming, as Livesay advertised a subscription in June 1791 for engravings of two paintings to which ‘their Majesties [. . .] have graciously condescended to prefix their names’. The artist envisaged a pair of large colour prints ‘executed in the first stile of chalk manner’, and therefore expensively produced. One was to represent the procession through the play-field, while the other would show ‘the Assembling and Passing of the whole School before the Royal Family at Salt-Hill’. Costing five guineas and accompanied by a key of names, the planned engravings anticipate the school photograph that would become commonplace a century later.'
[Source: 'Richard Livesay’s painting of the Eton Montem' by Catherine Dille, The Burlington Magazine, July 2022, p.653-654]
'Richard Livesay's large unfinished picture of the Montem procession hangs with some of the individual small-scale portraits, taken from the life, the total number of which must account for the fact that Livesay never finished his grand design.'
[Source: 'Treasures of Eton' by James McConnell (editor), 1976, p.110]
'Eton Montem. By R. Livesay. h ft. by 3 ft. 6 in., unfinished. Painted between 1791 and 1796.
Livesay was drawing master to the children of George III., and was made drawing master to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1796.
A long picture, unfinished ; a procession of boys advancing to the right, with spectators behind them, containing finished portraits. A blank space in the centre seems to have been reserved for the principal group. Figures on horseback left incomplete.
The completion of the picture was probably hindered by the painter's removal to Portsmouth.'
This painting represents an unfinished project by the artist. As James Lawrence (1773–1840) wrote:
'"Every master and every scholar was to figure in it; and he began by taking every portrait separately, to be transferred at his leisure to the scene of action [. . .] The artist, not only desirous of the Royal Patronage, but of the permission of introducing their Majesties into his picture, sallied up to Windsor with several of these portraits, and requested an audience."
Royal consent was evidently forthcoming, as Livesay advertised a subscription in June 1791 for engravings of two paintings to which ‘their Majesties [. . .] have graciously condescended to prefix their names’. The artist envisaged a pair of large colour prints ‘executed in the first stile of chalk manner’, and therefore expensively produced. One was to represent the procession through the play-field, while the other would show ‘the Assembling and Passing of the whole School before the Royal Family at Salt-Hill’. Costing five guineas and accompanied by a key of names, the planned engravings anticipate the school photograph that would become commonplace a century later.'
[Source: 'Richard Livesay’s painting of the Eton Montem' by Catherine Dille, The Burlington Magazine, July 2022, p.653-654]
'Richard Livesay's large unfinished picture of the Montem procession hangs with some of the individual small-scale portraits, taken from the life, the total number of which must account for the fact that Livesay never finished his grand design.'
[Source: 'Treasures of Eton' by James McConnell (editor), 1976, p.110]
Description
Content (event)
Montem
Dimensions
height (sight size): 1025mm
width (sight size): 3275mm
width (sight size): 3275mm
Inscription
I. D. label on frame
Materials & techniques note
Oil on canvas
Physical description
Unfinished
Carved gilt wood frame with applied leaf decoration
Carved gilt wood frame with applied leaf decoration
Production
Person
Livesay, Richard, 1750 - 1826 (Artist)
Date
c.1793
History and association
Object history note
Provenance: With Messrs. T. Maple and Co. in 1891;; presented to Eton College by Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle (1864-1928) for display in 'the boys' library' at Eton in 1891
Exhibited: Eton Loan Exhibition, Eton, 1891
Exhibited: Eton Loan Exhibition, Eton, 1891
