“Ruth Julia Cripps” (1907) by Sir Frank Dicksee, 1853

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Victorian Painters —> Sir Frank Dicksee —> Next]

Ruth Julia Cripps

Sir Frank Dicksee, 1853–1928

1907

Oil on canvas

38 x 30 inches (96.5 x 76 cm.)

Signed and dated “Frank Dicksee 1907,” lower left

Provenance: Ruth Julia Cripps, commissioned by her father, Charles Alfred Cripps,1st Baron Parmoor; and by descent.

Source: The Fine Art Society 2014

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

See commentary below

The Fine Art Society, London, has most generously given its permission to use information, images, and text from its catalogues in the Victorian Web. This generosity has led to the creation of hundreds and hundreds of the site's most valuable documents on painting, drawing, sculpture, furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, and the people who created them. The copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with the Fine Art Society. [GPL]

Commentary

Frank Dicksee studied in the studio of his father, Thomas Francis Dicksee (1819–95), who painted portraits and historical genre scenes; he then entered the Royal Academy Schools, London, where he was granted a studentship in 1871. He also began to work as an illustrator during the 1870s. During the 1880s he was commissioned by Cassell & Co. to illustrate their editions of Longfellow’s Evangeline (1882), Shakespeare’s Othello (1890) and Romeo and Juliet (1884).

Dicksee’s paintings are executed with textural fluidity and rich orchestrations of colour. They reveal a curious blend of influences, in particular the classicism of Frederic Leighton and the abstracted idealism of G. F. Watts. His predilection for the decorative aspects of painting grew out of his studies with Henry Holiday, a designer of stained glass. He passionately championed the Victorian ideals of High Art and publicly condemned the artistic trends that emerged towards the end of his life. His work covers a wide range of subject matter and genres, including biblical and allegorical paintings. He also painted society portraits and social dramas, such as The Confession (1896; private collection, see Great Victorian Pictures, exhibition catalogue by R. Treble, ACGB, 1978, p.30).

Dicksee was elected ARA in 1881, RA in 1891 and PRA in 1924. He was knighted in 1925 and made KCVO in 1927. His sister Margaret Isabel (1858–1903) and brother Herbert Thomas (1862–1942) were also painters, as was his uncle John Robert Dicksee (1817–1905). There are diary entries of Dicksee staying in the sitter’s family home of Parmoor in Buckinghamshire in 1907, where the present portrait was executed.

Ruth Julia Cripps was the daughter of the first Lord Parmoor and daughter of Theresa, sister of Beatrice Webb (Beatrice Webb with her husband Sydney started the London School of Economics). Ruth’s younger brother Sir Stafford Cripps was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the post-war government under Clement Attlee in 1947. She was married to Sir Francis Egerton FRS, and was the great aunt and godmother to the current Lord Parmoor.

Bibliography

The Fine Art Society 2014. Exhibition Catalogue. Edinburgh: Bourne Fine Art; London: The Fine Art Society, 2014. No. 14.

Last modified 31 May 2014