Painting of the Day: At the Inn Door, c. 1839

At the Inn Door
C. 1839, Henry Singleton
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted by Henry Singleton (1766-1839) in the years before his death, this brightly-hued genre painting depicts a barmaid serving ale to a young man. 

Singleton was reared by his uncle William Singleton—a famed miniaturist and portrait painter. Henry attended the Royal Academy schools, starting his painting career at the age of sixteen.  At this time, he received his first gold medal for his work.

While much of Singleton’s work represents historical or contemporary events, he sometimes painted portraits and genre scenes such as this one.  These works were smaller in scale and less confident in the depiction of figures than his historical pieces.  Nonetheless, they were quite popular if only for their sentimentality.

Singleton often painted his characters in out-of-date dress.  Here, for example, the figures are wearing costumes dating to the late Eighteenth Century.  He did this purposely to create a feeling of nostalgia which would tug at people’s hearts. 

A hand-colored engraving of this painting was created by William Nutter (1754-1802). It was captioned: “THE ALE-HOUSE DOOR/ Come my Dear! I’ll pledge you.”