UCL Discovery

Abstract

Frith’s unembarrassed commercialism, his pride in the prices he commanded and the crowds he attracted, the high speed and duplication of his artistic output and his apparently unquestioning confidence in his own powers attracted comment, both affectionate and malicious, from his contemporaries. However, in terms of the condition and stability of his paintings, posterity appears to have endorsed his judgement, and his paintings are recognised as examples of British nineteenth-century painting that have stood the test of time. In examining documentary evidence, including the artist’s letters and his account with his colourman, the paper demonstrates that Frith’s thorough, unadventurous technique and painstaking approach to finish enabled his paintings to outlive the twentieth-century eclipse of his style of Victorian art, emerging as examples of technical 'normality' in an era of experimentation.