Hope Cherishing the Drooping by William Cave Thomas (1820-1896). Exhibited 1851. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches (91.5 X 91.5 cm). Provenance: Strawberry Hill auction, Ventom, Bull & Cooper, 30 July 1883 (lot 939). Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1851 (no. 737); Belfast Exhibition of Art, 1852 (no. 115). Courtesy of the Maas gallery. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Commentary from the Maas Gallery
The subject of this picture's clear message is typical of Thomas' Christian pre-occupations, as demonstrated by the titles of his paintings at the Royal Academy. There, in 1851 – the year Millais and Hunt provoked critics with their bright and bold pictures – Hope Cherishing the Drooping attracted only praise: "an elegant painting worthy of the best place that could have been given to it on the Academy's walls" (Art Journal, 1851), and "an excellently designed figure, showing advance in agreeable tone of colour" (Spectator, 14 June 1851).
The picture was bought by Lady Frances Waldegrave, who, by marriages, first to the eldest, and then to the next heir to the Waldegrave family fortune, became a wealthy widow twice over by the age of 25. She lived at Strawberry Hill House at Twickenham. Her companion there, and, in 1862, her fourth husband, Chichester Fortesque, was a sophisticated, cultivated man. We know from his diary that in 1851 they were both reading Ruskin's Stones of Venice, and they then began to buy modern paintings; she owned a version of Holman Hunt's Claudio and Isabella. Hope Cherishing the Drooping was the only oil painting in the dressing room next to her boudoir, when the contents of Strawberry Hill were auctioned off in 1883.
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
Thomas exhibited this allegorical work in a tondo format at the Royal Academy in 1851, no. 737. It prefigures the type of works later made famous by G. F. Watts, including his own famous painting of Hope, the first two versions of which he completed thirty-five years later in 1886. When Thomas's painting was shown at the Royal Academy it was favourably, although not extensively reviewed. It is a pity he did not do more works in the same vein because it is certainly one of his most beautiful and fluid compositions, far different from the stiff academic compositions he later exhibited influenced by the Nazarenes.
A critic for The Art Journal objected to where this significant work was hung, it having been "skied" where it couldn't be well seen: "No. 737. Hope Cherishing the Drooping, W. C. Thomas. We cannot divine wherefore this picture should have been placed at the top of this room. Hope is represented by a semi-nude figure, watering flowers in an open daylight garden composition. In colour and sweetness of character this picture seems to be worthy of the best place that could have been given to it" (160). A reviewer for The Spectator considered this the best work of mythological character in the whole Royal Academy exhibition: "Independent of this, whose whole purpose is style, the best work of mythological character is Mr. Thomas's Hope Cherishing the Drooping (737) – an excellently designed figure, showing advance in agreeable tone of colour (571).
Bibliography
"Fine Arts. The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Spectator XXIV (June 14, 1851): 570-71.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series III (1 June 1851): 153-62.
Created 28 February 2018
Last modified 1 February 2024