Full Record |
| Title |
Christ at Emmaus |
| Collection |
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
| Artist |
Loutherbourg, Philip James de (French painter and scenographer, 1740-1812, active in Great Britain) |
| Date |
1797 (dated) |
| Signed |
yes |
| Description |
This painting and its pair, Jesus Betrayed were commissioned as part of a London based publishing venture by Thomas Macklin, begun c. 1790 and completed in 1800. Macklin employed twenty different artists and fifteen different engravers to translate their work into engraving for his six volume Holy Bible. De Loutherbourg's dramatic compositions illustrate the beginnings of the Romantic movement in Britain. |
| Current Accession Number |
1982P44 |
| Former Accession Number |
P.44´82 |
| Inscription |
front lr 'P.J. de Loutherbourg RA 1797' |
| Subject |
religion (Christ at Emmaus) |
| Measurements |
127.5 x 101.2 cm cm (estimate) |
| Material |
oil on canvas |
| Acquisition Details |
Purchased with the aid of the National Art-Collections Fund and the V & A Purchase Grant Fund 1982. |
| Provenance |
Macklin sale, Peter Coxe Burrell and Foster, 1800, lot 72 [?]; Joseph Houlton, Farleigh [?]; Parochial Church Council of Farleigh Hungerford; Christie's, 1982. |
| Publications |
J. E. Jackson, A Guide to Farleigh Hungerford, Taunton, 1860; Boase, T. S. R., 'Macklin and Bowyer', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 26, 1963, p. 177. |
| Notes |
On top member of stretcher 'CK 90' dealer's stencil. T. S. R. Boase writing of de Loutherbourg's contributions to Macklin's The Holy Bible has said: 'No other group of paintings exemplify so clearly the early stages of the Romantic Movement in England'. Engraved by James Fittler, 1798 and published in vol .5 of Macklin's Bible. Letter in file from Ellis Waterhouse: 'Joseph Houlton sounds like a very probable purchaser.' The Houltons built their neo-Gothic Farleigh house nearby in the first decade of the 1800s. Joseph Houlton Esq, Furleigh was a subscriber to Macklin's Bible. Another, smaller, earlier version of this subject was sold by Madame Basan in Paris, 4 April 1791. |
| Rights Owner |
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
| Author |
Dr Patricia Smyth |
