Oil Portrait thought to be Francis Wheatley - Unknown Artist (National Portrait Gallery, London, UK)
. . . In the midst of this turmoil, lacking aristocratic sitters, Wheatley created these images of street sellers which, although regarded in his lifetime as of little consequence besides his society portraits, are now the works upon which his reputation rests . . . However, these idealized images are far from social reportage . . . The languorous poise and artful drapery of Wheatley's figures suggest classical models, as if these hawkers were the urban equivalents of the swains and sheperdesses of the pastoral world. . . I like to surmise that these fine images celebrate the qualities of the people that Wheatley--like Laroon before him--experienced first-hand in the streets and markets, growing up in Covent Garden, and chose to witness in this affectionate and subtly-political set of pictures, existing in pertinent contrast to the portraits of rich patrons who shunned him when he was in need.
The Gentle Author's Cries! of London (p. 24)
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Francis Wheatley, 1747-1801, exhibited his series of oil paintings entitled the “Cries of London” at the Royal Academy (London) between 1792 and 1795. Wheatly was born in Covent Garden and grew up amongst the street hawkers and their cries. As such, he was well-suited to portray these street vendors.
Wheatley’s paintings of London street criers represent the century’s most successful depiction of London street criers, albeit also some of the most idealized. This may not be surprising given that they appeared at the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1795 when romantic and neoclassical aesthetics were at their zenith. A calm, clean, rosy-cheeked, business-like manner pervades.
In this regard, Wheatley's presentation my be contrasted with that of Marcellus Laroon’s “Cryes” (first published in 1687) and Thomas Rowlandson’s satirical Cries of London (which first appeared in 1799; later fifty-four plates in "Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders" in 1820).
In spite of the idealized presentation of Wheatley's paintings, it is important to note that Wheatley places working people at the center of the image and represents them with both an honest presence and an equal stature in labor. It is tempting to say that these are important human qualities that Wheatley found in the streets of London and did not find, after his election to the Royal Academy (at the expense of the King's nominee), among the British aristocracy.
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