Saturday, September 24, 2011

Painting of the Day: The Broken Jar, 1816

The Broken Jar
1816, David Wilkie
The Victoria & Albert Museum
Shepshanks Bequest
This handsome painting is the work of the famed genre painter Sir David Wilkie who exhibited the canvas at the Royal Academy in 1816. Such domestic scenes were the height of fashion at the time and were assigned tremendous popular and commercial appeal.


Among the many collectors of such paintings in the Nineteenth Century was John Sheepshanks who donated this work among a collection of over five hundred others to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1857.

2 comments:

Doni said...

Is there more to the story behind this painting?

To me those are the 'servants at the door'...running to see what commotion has arisen in their master's chamber? And what did upset the jar? Hmm Was it sitting on that dubiously steady chair? Or on the shelf above, he surely could not reach?

Joseph Crisalli said...

It's open to interpretation. I think you're on the right track!