JOHN PETTIE, R.A.

JOHN PETTIE, R.A.

Biographical sketch of John Pettie

c. 1884

Frederick George Stephens (1828-1907), author and editor

F. G. Stephens, Artists at Home, photographed by J. P. Mayall and reproduced in facsimile by photoengraving on copper plates; edited, with biographical notes and descriptions, by Frederick George Stephens (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington; New York: Appleton & Co., 1884), pp. 39-42.

Pettie, John (1839-1893), Scottish painter

May 1884

Born in Edinburgh, John Pettie was educated under the instruction of R. Scott Lauder and J. Ballantyne. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1860, and has since exhibited popular paintiings every year without fail. He settled in London in 1862 and was elected an A.R.A. in 1866; he became a full Academician in 1873, taking the place of Sir Edwin Landseer. Pettie's subject matter is typically historical or literary, and many of his works have been engraved.

The online edition of this work in the public domain, i.e., not protected by copyright, has been produced by the National Gallery of Art.

NGA_Pettie.pdf

Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Omeka record contributed by Linda Merrill

September 25, 2016

MR. JOHN PETTIE, R.A.

 ACCORDING to the best authorities, this brilliant and powerful artist, who was elected a Royal Academician in December, 1873, in the place of Sir Edwin Landseer, was born in Edinburgh in 1839, and, like several other living members of the Royal Academy, was educated in art in the Trustees’ Academy of the Scottish metropolis, which has facilitated the studies of nearly all the modern artists of the “north countree.”  The gentlemen who may be said to have formed the style, and developed the powers of most of the painters in question, were Messrs. R. Scott Lauder and J. Ballantyne, instructors whose methods and influence are distinguishable in abundance wherever current Scottish pictures are shown.  Some of Mr. Pettie’s earlier works were recognized in Edinburgh while he was still little more than a youth, and they illustrated romantic and dramatic subjects not dissimilar to those which the energy and tact of the artist has since made familiar in the galleries of London.  His early pictures in Edinburgh were styled “The Prison Pet,” “False Dice,” “Distressed Cavaliers,” and “One of Cromwell’s Divines.”

            The Royal Academy knew nothing of Mr. Pettie till 1860, when he contributed “The Armourers” to that year’s display in Trafalgar Square.  Since this date he has been an unfailing exhibitor in the same gallery, and yearly added to the large share of popularity which his early successes secured for his pictures.  These works were, in the order of their exhibition, as follows: --“What d’ye lack, Madam? What d’ye Lack?” a scene outside a fripperer’s booth in London in the “olden Time” (1861); “The Sub-Prior and Edward Glendenning,” a scene from “The Monastery,” by Sir Walter Scott (1862); “The Trio,” with a motto from Chaucer’s “Romaunt of the Rose,” representing, in a humorous and satirical vein, a group of itinerant musicians exercising their craft in a public street (1863); “The Tonsure,” a monkish theme, and the more serious “George Fox refusing to take the Oath at Holker Hall, A.D. 1663,” a telling and dramatic illustration of one of the few subjects which, in a painter’s phrase, are “good,” and to be found in the “Journal” of George Fox, the Quaker missionary (1864); “A Drum-head Court Martial” (1865); “An Arrest for Witchcraft” (1866); “The Doctor,” and “Treason,” conspirators plotting while at a table (1867); “Pax Vobiscum!” “A Tussle with a Highland Smuggler,” and “Weary with {40} present Cares and Memories sad” (1868); “The Disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey,” and “The Gambler’s Victim” (1869); “A Sally,” “’Tis blythe May-Day,” and “Touchstone and Audrey” (1870).

            “The Pedlar,” “Portrait of John McWhirter, Esq.,” “The Love Song,” and “Scene in the Temple Garden,” an illustration of Shakespeare’s history of the origin of the distinctions of the White and Rose Red factions, as given in “Henry VI.,” Part I., Act II., Scene iv., appeared in 1871; “The Gipsey’s Oak,” “Terms to the Besieged,” “Portrait of G. B. Robertson, Esq.,” and “Silvius and Phebe,” from “As You Like It,” the scene of Phebe’s scornfulness and Silvius’s entreaties (1872); “Sanctuary,” Midnight Watch,” and “The Flag of Truce” (1873); “Juliet and Friar Laurence,” “A State Secret,” and “Ho! Ho! Ho!” (1874); “Scene in Hal o’ th’ Wynd’s Smithy,” a subject borrowed from Scott’s “Fair Maid of Perth,” “Portrait in the Costume of the Sixteenth Century,” “Portrait in the Costume of the Seventeenth Century,” and “Jacobites, 1745,” would-be rebels holding council while one of their number reads a political missive (1875); a “Portrait of Dr. Ullathorn,” of Birmingham, “The Threat,” which was much admired for its energetic melodrama, “The Step,” and “Portrait in the Costume of the Seventeenth Century” (1876); “Hunted Down,” a melodramatic subject borrowed from the penultimate event in the life of a Scottish “thief with the strong hand,” “A Knight of the Seventeenth Century,” a likeness of Mr. William Black, author of “A Princess of Thule,” &c., “A Sword and Dagger Fight,” the passion of which was intense, and “A Lady of the Seventeenth Century” (1877); “The Hour,” “Colin Hunter, Esq.,” “A Member of the Long Parliament,” “S. Taylor-Whitehead, Esq.,” “Rob Roy,” and “The Laird” (1878); “The Death Warrant,” Edward VI., when doomed to die, signing an order for the execution of a condemned person, “A. Watt, Esq.,” “A. Strahan, Esq.,” and “Portrait in the Costume of the Fifteenth Century” (1879); “Mrs. D. Gregg and Children,” “Before the Battle,” “His Grace,” a standing figure admirably associated with a costume of the seventeenth century; and “Mrs. E. Fox White” (1880).

            “Her Grace,” the apt pendant to “His Grace,” “Trout Fishing in the Highlands,” a single figure on the bank of a stream, “J. Ballantyne, Esq.,” and “Before his Peers,” appeared in 1881; “He Talked with Him of Cain,” an illustration of “Eugene Aram,” “The Duke of Monmouth’s Interview with James II.,” and “The Palmer” (1882); “A Queen’s Scholar, Westminster,” “Dost know this Water Fly?”, “The Ransom,” and “The Jester’s Merry Thought,” a large subject from Rabelais (1883).  “The Time and Place,” a duelist waiting for his antagonist, was at the British Institution in 1864, and was followed in the same gallery by “Out of an Engagement,” and “The Wounded Despatch-Bearer” (1865).

            There can be no doubt of the energy and uncommon facility of the artist who, since 1860, has produced all these pictures, besides others not exhibited at all, or which have {41} been shown at other than the London galleries named above.  All the paintings in costume are portraits.  Mr. Pettie left Scotland, and settled in London in 1862; he was elected an A.R.A. in 1866; an R.A. as above stated.  Several of his pictures, including “The Time and Place,” “Out of an Engagement,” “The Bible and the Monk,” “His Grace” and “Her Grace,” have been engraved.

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