The Hungry Messenger. 1890. Oil on canvas. 37 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches (95 x 69.9 cm). Collection of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, accession no. TWCMS:B10555. Image released via Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The Hungry Messenger was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890, no. 5. In this work Storey has returned to a historical genre subject much loved by the St John's Wood Clique but still influenced by his love of Dutch seventeeenth-century painting. The time period is that of the English Civil War between the Royalist forces of Charles I and the parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell. A messenger dressed in his black-and-white Puritan attire is delivering a message to one of the Roundhead commanders seated at a table eating a meal. His sword is resting against the table. Despite the messenger's obvious hunger he is not asked to join in the repast. A serving maid may be glimpsed in the background through an open door. A seascape hangs on the wall in the background.
When the painting was shown at the Royal Academy F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum considered it perhaps Storey's best work:
This artist's many friends rejoice over The Hungry Messenger (5), not only because it almost justifies their praise of his former works, but because it promises improvement for the future. To us it seems the best thing he has done. The scene is the breakfast parlour of a squire or justice of the peace in Puritan times. A messenger has brought a letter, which the squire, who is sitting at his breakfast, reads without offering refreshments to the new-comer, whose modesty almost fails to control his fingers. The subject is neither valuable nor difficult, but the treatment is clever, the touch is neater and firmer than usual (that is to say, the artist has taken unusual pains with the execution of his work), the colour is brighter, and the lighting is clearer, but no great amount of care is observable in the details. [645]
Henry Blackburn in his Academy Notes described the work in this way: The hungry messenger, G. A. Storey, A.R.A. A lean-looking messenger, with broad-brimmed hat in his left hand, and black Puritan attire, has brought a letter to a Round-head captain in buff jerkin and top boots" (5).
Margaux has told a humorous story regarding morality as related to this picture: "In connection with the sale of The Hungry Messenger to the Sunderland Corporation, Mr. Storey tells me that the negotiations were at one time imperilled by the objection on the part of one of the Sunderland administrators that the picture was subversive of morality! Whilst the cavalier is absorbed in the message, the messenger, it will be seen, is abstracting a morsel from the well-filled table – hence the moralist's objection, which, it is satisfactory to know, was overruled without any apparent injury to the virtue of Sunderland" (627).
Bibliography
Blackburn, Henry. Academy Notes Issue XVI. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.
Margaux, Adrian. "The Art of Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R. A." The Windsor Magazine XXII (1905): 613-27
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3264 (17 May 1890): 644-47.
Created 24 September 2023