"Sarah Smetham and Baby John" by James Smetham, 1821-89

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Sarah Smetham and Baby John

James Smetham, 1821-89

1855

Oil on canvas

H 90 x W 69 cm

Accession no. SM4

Bequeathed by the artist's great-great-grandson, 2016<.p>

This tender portrait of his young wife and baby son, in subtle shades and with perfectly captured flesh tones, is one of Smetham's most accomplished works. [Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.] — Jacqueline Banerjee

Reproduced via Art UK by kind permission of Oxford Brookes University/Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History).

In 1851 Smetham was appointed drawing master at the Wesleyan Normal Institution in London where he met another teacher Sarah Goble. They were married in 1854. Their first child, a son named John, was born in 1856. His marriage to Sarah brought joy and stability to his life. She shared many of the same cultural interests and had her own artistic talents. In a letter to William Davies of February 17, 1855 Smethan wrote that Sarah was one of approximately 200 teachers who had taken part in a special art course at the Department of Practical Art in South Kensington that taught drawing. Only 40 of those took the exam for certification in drawing, and seven succeeded, “six men and one woman, which one woman was Mrs. Sarah Smetham” (Casteras, 16).

Sarah besides presiding in domestic affairs at times became the principal wage earner for the family. She taught school in the East End intermittently in order to stabilize the erratic family income. As Casteras has noted,

Sarah Smetham must have been an exceptional person in strength of character as well as emotional fortitude, serving as the primary emotional buttress for her husband and their brood of six offspring. She worked both before and after their marriage and helped him through numerous grim personal and professional times, enduring the tragedy of his severe emotional withdrawal from life from 1877 until his death in 1899. Smetham was quite dependent on her for many reasons, and she shielded him from – or at least tried to deflect – some of the monetary and other demands of everyday life. Apparently their marriage was a strong and affectionate one. [16]

In 1902 she edited with William Davies the publication by Macmillan and Co. of the Letters of James Smetham. — Dennis T. Lanigan

Bibliography

Casteras, Susan P. James Smetham: Artist, Author, Pre-Raphaelite Associate. Aldershot, U.K.: Scholar Press, 1995.

Created 18 June 2021