"Our Spare Room" at Glasmakil, Skye. R. T. Pritchett (1828–1907), watercolour signed by the artist and dated 1865. 22.5 x 31.5 cm (whole object). RCIN 926524. Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This homely scene shows an untidy room in a crofter's cottage on the Isle of Skye, with a focus on a spinning wheel which has clearly been in use. On the right is a cooking fire with a griddle suspended over it, and on the left is the entrance to another room, where a woman is standing near a chair. According to the Royal Collection Trust site, Queen Victoria bought the watercolour on 21 March 1868 for 15 guineas, and mounted it into an album "which she bequeathed to one of her children."
It is typical of the Queen to have responded to an everyday scene of rural life. Although the work relates to the social realism of the sixties, it does so by suggesting useful activity rather than emphasizing poverty. This would have been one of the first works by Prichett to attract the Queen's attention. Delia Millar writes, "In March 1868 Queen Victoria bought two of Pritchett's watercolours of Scotland, perhaps through the duchess of Atholl. This signalled the beginning of sustained royal patronage of the artist." After her initial acquisitions, however, the Queen would find Pritchett useful for recording royal occasions, very different in atmosphere from this Highland interior. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Millar, Delia. "Pritchett, Robert Taylor (1828–1907), gun maker and landscape painter." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. 10 September 2023.
"Our Spare Room" at Glasmakil, Skye. The Royal Collection Trust. Web. 10 September 2023.
Created 10 September2023