Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Anon. sale, Christie's London, 16 May 1903, lot 104. Property of the artist, sold to W. W. Sampson for 150gns;
Sale, King & Chasemore Pulborough, 18 November 1970, lot 28.

EXHIBITED:
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Autumn 1900, no. 306, price £600;
Birmingham, Royal Society of Artists, Autumn 1901, no. 269, price £400;
London, Royal Academy, Summer 1902, no. 137;
Manchester, City Art Gallery (Corporation), Autumn 1902, no. 53, price £400.

LITERATURE:
Sepia photogravure, 70 x 51cm, (copyright Berlin Photographic, 133 New Bond Street, London);
Sepia photogravure 32.5 x 22.5cm, presented with Weldon's Illustrated Dressmaker Christmas 1906, (copyright Berlin Photographic);
Colour chromolithograph, 59 x 43cm, date unknown, possibly a calendar, (copyright Berlin Photographic);
Colour chromolithograph, calendar for 1911, 52 x 39.5cm (copyright Berlin Photographic);
Royal Academy Illustrated, 1902, p. 59;
Sunday At Home, 1904-5, facing p. 337;
The Windsor magazine Vol. XXII, June 1905 p. 2;
Everywoman's Encyclopaedia part work no. 34, Feb. 1912, p.4066 by permission of Berlin Photographic.



The idea of the home and family were potent forces in Victorian England. As society underwent dramatic change during the latter part of the 19^th century, family, marriage and childhood became synonymous with stability and middle-class prosperity. Writers and artists idealised the Victorian family in an almost quasi-sacred light with an emphasis on its connection with morality and respectability and a strong sense of separate gender roles. Women were ideally placed within the home, making it a domain in which a family could flourish, impervious to the woes and risks of the outside world that were faced by the male spouse.

This was of course an idealised vision and a far cry from the harsh lives of many, but it was one easily understood by the public and heavily associated with the desirable virtues of middle-class life; parental authority, loving relationships and ultimately the basis upon which a successful society could be built. This foundation of everyday morality was all the more important given the unsettled conditions outside the home. The industrial revolution produced massive social flux that placed emphasis on moving up the social ladder by means of financial gain. Marriage was seen as an important part of this process, enfranchising both men and women in achieving a better future for themselves and their children.

The greatest sponsor of the family was Queen Victoria who styled herself as a monarch middle-class in spirit if not in station. After her marriage to Albert in 1857, Victoria bore nine children, devoted herself to her home life, and ultimately succeeded in establishing herself as the model bourgeois housewife whose chief priorities were domestic.

Fred Morgan celebrates both marriage and childhood with splendid effect in the present lot. Eleven children can be seen surrounding the happy couple who proudly descend the church steps in the beautiful village on Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. Morgan's own son, Courtenay, aged 6 at the time, is seen sitting on the wall to the top right of the picture. These children, of whom nine are girls, serve as a pervasive reminder of the pride that was held in showing off ones offspring and more poignantly of their parent's aspirational social ambitions. By the 1880's Fred Morgan began to embrace this trend and concentrate much more on sympathetic portrayals of children and young couples, particular wedding scenes. The 'white wedding' was largely a Victorian invention with the bride's angelic appearance being symbolic of her innocence in the eyes of the church and her husband-to-be. This subject was used with tremendous success in Luke Fildes The Village Wedding which sold before its exhibition in 1883. Like Fildes, Morgan became well-known among the middle-classes as demand for such depictions increased.

Frederick Morgan was born in London in 1847 as the eldest son of the artist John Morgan RBA (1822-1885). As a young man, Fred was encouraged by his father to embark on an artistic career, however was soon compelled to find more stable work in the city of London. With little ambition or talent for this kind of career, Morgan returned home just three years later and found work as a portrait painter for a local photographer. In the 1870's he began to exhibit regularly at the Royal Academy where he attracted the attention of the eminent dealers Mesers. Agnew & Son, who became his primary patron. Morgan continued to exhibit at the Academy until 1916 and, during his lifetime, also founded the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and exhibited at both the Paris Exposition Universalle in 1878 and the World's Colombian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Morgan died in 1927 but his works remain deeply revealing of the period in which they were produced and serve as a reminder of the sincerity and conviction with which the values they represent were viewed.