Eastward Ho! August 1857, by Henry Nelson O'Neil, ARA, 1817-1880, signed and dated 1858. Courtesy of Sotheby's. [Click on both the images on this page to enlarge them.]
There is much to suggest that this was an earlier version of the largerwork that was shown at the Royal Academy in 1858, rather than a later replica. It was painted shortly after the massacres of men, women and children at the large British cantonment at Cawnpore (Kanpur)in India, during the Indian struggle for independence. The loss of the menfolk was bad enough, but the slaughter of the seventy-three women and 124 children provoked a terrible backlash (see David 254). The men in this painting were going out as relief troops bent on support and vengeance. The latter motive was symbolised most forcefully by Edward Armitage's Retribution (1858).
O'Neil's focus, however, is on the women taking leave of their menfolk, and this evokes feelings of pity rather than thoughts of revenge. It belongs to a wider genre of leave-taking paintings, popular at this time: examples include depictions of emigrants parting from their families, like Henry Edward Doyle's The Emigrants' Farewell. This was a potent theme, which was bound to tug on the heartstrings. The natural anxiety for the men's safety and even survival makes the parting that much more poignant, as does the presence of an elderly ex-serviceman seeing off his son, and a babe in arms. The baby was modelled by William
A closer view of the women on the gangplank. Can it be by chance that the baby is being shown a rag doll now associated with racial prejudice?
Looking at the painting more closely, Joan Hichberger writes,
It does not appear that there are more than two social "stations’="" represented in the painting — the "respectable" working-class soldiers and their families and possibly an upper middle-class group in the top left-hand corner. O’Neil’s painting portrays the family life of the soldiers as coherent, respectable and prosperous. All the figures are dressed in reasonably smart clothes: none are ragged or shoeless. The reviewer picked out one woman as "a soldier’s wife, a poor woman, but decent enough." She is shown clasping the hand of a sergeant. The sergeant occupied an especially secure position in ruling-class mythology, since, as a noncommissioned officer, he was the most reliable, intelligent and above all respectable working-class soldier. The sergeant and his wife would have been instantly recognisable as respectable members of their class. [168]
According to Southey's catalogue note, prepared by Mark Bills, the painting shown at the exhibition was taken on tour and seen by an estimated 540,000 people — becoming "one of the most iconic images of Victorian art," and changing O'Neil's career. The artist followed it up with another one, in which he depicted the men returning, injured and battle-weary, but of course now heroes. Lionel Lambourne calls the later work, entitled Home Again, a "pendant" (363), and indeed the two are often shown together. Jeremy Paxman, for example, places them on facing pages in his book about the Victorians "through the paintings of the age" (see pp. 182 and 183). But perhaps it is better to see the two works as companion pieces. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to related material
- Massacre in the Boats off Cawnpore, 1857
- An Icon of Empire. The Angel at the Cawnpore Memorial, by Baron Marochetti
- The Flight from Lucknow
Bibliography
Catalogue Note. Victorian & Edwardian Art/10." Sotheby's. Web. 31 December 2022.
David, Saul. The Indian Mutiny, 1857. London: Viking, 2002.
Hichberger, J. W. M. Images of the Army: The Military in British Art, 1815-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988.
Lambourne, Lionel. Victorian Painting. London and New York: Phaidon, 1999.
Paxman, Jeremy. The Victorians: Britain through the Paintings of the Age. London: BBC Books, 2009.
Created 31 December 2022