The Roll Call. 1874. Signed and dated 1874. Oil on canvas, 93.3 x 183.5 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external). Collection © Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405915, courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust.
This is the painting that first brought Elizabeth Thompson, as she was then, to the public eye. It had been commissioned by a certain Charles Galloway, a wealthy Manchester industrialist, for £126; but in the end he was prevailed upon to cede it to Queen Victoria, who was greatly impressed by it. The whole story of its genesis, reception, and entry into the Royal Collection, is told at length in the artist's autobiography.
At the outset, typically, she was most concerned to depict the attitudes and attributes of the men accurately:
I called Saturday, December I3th, 1873, a "red-letter day," for I then began my picture at the London studio. Having made a little water-colour sketch previously, very carefully, of every attitude of the figures, I had none of those alterations to make in the course of my work which waste so much time. Each figure was drawn in first without the great coat, my models posing in a tight "shell jacket," so as to get the figure well drawn first. How easily then could the thick, less shapely great coat be painted on the well-secured foundation. No matter how its heavy folds, the cross-belts, haversacks, water-bottles, and everything else broke the lines, they were there, safe and sound, underneath.... [102-3]
Details were thoroughly researched and verified, a frustrating procedure as the now elderly combatants wracked their brains and changed their minds as she questioned them. But at length, the work was finished. She was not very satisfied with it, but at the end of March that year, the painting was finally submitted to the Royal Academy. Gratifyingly, Mr Galloway himself offered to pay somewhat more than the agreed price when he saw it (£126, instead of £100). Then, she learnt that the painting had created a stir among the Academicians. On Varnishing Day, still rather doubtful of its true merit, she found herself fêted by the greatest names of the Academy, from Sir John Everett Millais onwards. And then, as she made some alterations to the helmet lying in the snowy foreground, she was practically mobbed by "artists and starers" (107). Reassured at last, she was was delighted: "I am sure I cannot have looked very glum that day," she remarks (107). There was even , already, talk of her being elected ARA, although that was never to be. But there was to be another honour: "Thursday, April 30th. — The Royalties' private view. The Prince of Wales wants 'The Roll Call'" (107). Despite Galloway's considerable reluctance, arrangements were duly made for the transfer of the work.
Details showing (left): The wounded officer calling out the names in front of the commander, and (right) some of the wounded and the weary.
Closer to our own times, the artist is sometimes criticised for focusing on uniforms and so on, while avoiding "the squalor, dirt and suffering of warfare" (Spiers 192). But this painting, for one, is not at all a picturesque scene. Here is a post-battle formation which is very different from the any that precedes an engagement. The battle was apparently that of Inkerman in the Crimean War (certainly, that is how the Queen described it in her journal entry of Friday 4 May 1877), but it is representative in nature, showing a regiment of Grenadier Guards answering to their names in every degree of battle-weariness: some simply need support from colleagues, while others are in a state of utter collapse. A variety of bandaged injuries are on show (a soldier just behind the horse kneels to bandage his ankle, and even the officer taking the roll has a bandage round his forehead), while blood has trickled through the snow in the right foreground and from a fallen helmet as well. While this represents a fatality on the other side, it speaks of fatalities on both — for, after all, the roll is called in order to determine not only who has survived, but also who has not. Whether physical or mental, in this work as in others by the same artist, suffering is subtly but memorably expressed. What also emerges is comradeship, as some men seek support from their fellows, while others reach out to comfort or help them. The empathy implied here would inspire a similar response in any careful observer.
Link to Related Material
Bibliography
Butler, Elizabeth. An Autobiography. London: Constable, 1922. Internet Archive, from a copy in Robarts Library, University of Toronto. Web. 1 December 2024.
The Roll Call (with useful commentary). Royal Collection Trust. Web. 1 December 2024
Meynell, Wilfrid. The Life and Work of Lady Butler. London: The Art-Journal, 1898. Internet Archive, from a copy in the Getty Research Institute. Web. 30 November 2024.
Queen Victoria's Journals (open access in UK).
Spiers, Edward M. The Late Victorian Army, 1868-1902. Manchester: Manchester University Press (special ed. for Sandpiper Books), 1999.
Created 1 December 2024