FRED MORGAN ROI
1847 - London - 1927
Ref: CD 196
Snow frolic
Signed lower right: Fred Morgan
Oil on canvas: 30 x 25 in / 76.2 x 63.5 cm
Frame size: 41 ¾ x 36 ¾ in / 106 x 93.3 cm
In its original gilded Victorian composition frame
Painted circa 1895
Provenance:
Private collection, Canada
Waddingtons, Toronto, 2nd December 1999, lot 158a;
Richard Green, London;
private collection, USA, 2000;
Sotheby’s New York, 8th November 2012, lot 18a;
private collection, USA
Exhibited:
Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, The Seventy-First Autumn Exhibition, 1897, no.30
Manchester, Corporation of Manchester Art Gallery, Seventeenth Autumn Exhibition, 9th October 1899-6th January 1900, no.89
London, Richard Green, Nineteenth Century Paintings, November 2000, no.6, illus. in colour
Literature:
St James’s Budget, Christmas Number, 2nd December 1895, colour print or presentation plate included in the supplement
The Chronicle, Christmas Number, Adelaide, 19th December 1896, colour print included in the supplement
Chromolithograph as a calendar
Cover of Our Little Dots Annual, London, no date
Our Little Dots Annual, London, 1911, p.187
Fred Morgan specialised in radiant images of childhood adventure. This delightful painting of two joyful children bringing home some holly through the snow is one of the two Christmas scenes by Morgan which have come to light, the other being The sleigh ride (formerly Richard Green Gallery collection), and may well have been exhibited both in Birmingham and Manchester in the 1890s. Morgan contrasts the youthful glee of two laughing children tramping merrily over a snow-covered field, sheltering under an upturned hamper, with an old man in the background trudging heavily through the forest, bowed under the weight of a bundle of wood. Morgan realized the popularity of Christmas subjects which were eagerly sought after by advertisers needing suitable material for large single sheet calendars and by the editors of popular magazines for reproduction as high quality chromolithograph prints given away with their special Christmas editions. A colour print of this painting was the highlight of the St James’s Budget Christmas Number in 1895. The soap manufacturers A&F Pears Limited purchased seven of Morgan’s works for reproduction as large, colour prints presented with their Christmas Annual between 1891 and 1910. Morgan’s works were more familiar to the general public than the works of his Academician friends. His was the kind of art people enjoyed hanging on their walls and brought pleasure to millions. For example, up to 450,000 copies of each of his Pears’ prints were produced.
This work has been catalogued and authenticated by Terry Parker, a leading expert on late Victorian painters and author of Golden Hours: The Paintings of Arthur Elsley, 1998.
