Jump to content

A Painting by Robert Hudson (1852 - 1884)


ceegee

Recommended Posts

Can anyone identify the location of the attached painting by the Sheffield artist Robert Hudson (1852 - 1884), It appears that he was a talented artist and his work has been acquired by a number of museums. One of his paintings is in the collection of City Museums and is of the brook in Endcliffe Park Sheffield. 

Is this painting in the same area? Any ideas would be welcome

Robert Hudson Cottage.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm assuming you don't have access to see if anything is written on the back of the frame

If not then the place where you photographed it might have more information in their catalogue

(I've tried an image search but today Google is insistent that I'm actually looking for paintings of the River Hudson)

Can you tell what the writing at the bottom of the frame says (I suspect it's R. Hudson and a date but that's a guess)

Other than that it's a number of cottages by a small river [edit to add] i think a bloodyminded search along the rivers on the NLC maps are in order...

[edit again]

I want to suggest Norton Hammer, but I don't think it fits (the tree line in the distance is too low)

[final edit]

I reckon it's a millpond not a river, therefore the view possibly looks vaguely North (assuming Sheaf or Porter, I have another theory about the number of mature trees given this was painted only twenty or so years after the great flood)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also did a google but came up with nothing. When I first saw the picture I was reminded of the old cottages which stood at the bottom of Herries Road ( minus the railway viaduct) which stood by the side of a pond!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having strong family connections with Wardsend and having lived there as a small child I don't think it shows the cottages. Also the smaller pond was located some distance above the level of the cottages and the mill building. The tail goit from the mill was culverted underground down by the side of the cottages and came out in the portal to the main tunnel from the big pond. I enclose a sketch I did of the Wardsend Estate as I remember it.

hilldweller

IMG_0001.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 22/02/2017 at 14:25, ceegee said:

Can anyone identify the location of the attached painting by the Sheffield artist Robert Hudson (1852 - 1884), It appears that he was a talented artist and his work has been acquired by a number of museums. One of his paintings is in the collection of City Museums and is of the brook in Endcliffe Park Sheffield. 

Is this painting in the same area? Any ideas would be welcome

Robert Hudson Cottage.JPG

This resembles this area Bennett Wheel or Sheffield Moor Wheel, Vulcan Dam, River Porter. St. Mary's Church in background check the drawing on Picture Sheffield. The drawing is of a different perspective but looks very similar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If it is Sheffield (and it may well be Nottinghamshire) then I think it must be further up in the hills

See the chimney in the foreground on the right - at the top of that does anyone see that line as the crest of a bank/ridge/spur ?

It must be pretty steep because there's a gable end just in front of it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for your replies. The signature on the painting states says Hudson Junior, 1861. but the date is indistinct and it may be 1881. (He would have been 9 years old in 1861)

There is a label on the back from a nineteenth-century restorer in Cheltenham (now gone, it seems), together with a number (519) and some open-to-interpretation writing.

unspecifiedb.png

unspecifieda.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

can we see the writing that's open to interpretation ?

can you also tell what this says on the frame ?

(think it's R Hudson 18xx though, but might confirm the date at least)

Edit: I'm wondering if 519 is an exhibition ticket - maybe even one of the RA exhibitions (sadly the RA Summer exhibition catalogues aren't online yet)

nmnmnmnmn.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi

Just managed to register with the forum. 

I am the owner of the painting, and I am very grateful to ceegee for starting this thread and to everyone who has replied with ideas and suggestions.  

It seems that there were two Robert Hudsons, father and son, who were both painters.

Robert Sr was known as a painter of "fresh out-door subjects, such as birds nests and apple blossoms". This, I believe, is an example of Robert Sr's work:

403.JPG.589ef9194df3bb35b2e71b409023fb94.JPG

 

Robert Jr lived from 1852 to 1884, dying at the age of just 32. Thanks to the Royal Academy in London and Graves Gallery in Sheffield, I have some additional information.

Royal Academy

  1. Robert Hudson Jr showed a painting at the Royal Academy in 1877, titled “Companions in Age”
  2. His address at the time was given as 441 Glossop Rd, Sheffield.
  3. According to the Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Hudson Jr also showed at least 2 paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy.
  4. To be included in the Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940 one of the major auction galleries had to have sold a painting by Robert Hudson Jr for at least £100 between 1970 and 1975.

Graves Gallery in Sheffield

  1. Robert Hudson Junior
  2. Born 1852, Sheffield, Yorkshire, son of Robert Hudson Senior, Artist, Furniture broker
  3. 1861 Census: aged 9, Scholar, living at 100 Devonshire Street, Sheffield, Yorks, with parents, 4 siblings, 1 servant (RG9/3478. folio 72)
  4. 1871 Census: aged 19, artist in oil colours, living at 64 William Street, Sheffield, Yorks, with parents, 4 siblings (RG10/4670, folio 67. p21)
  5.  Studied Sheffield School of Art
  6. Travelled in Switzerland, Scotland and North Wales
  7. 1877: Marriage reg. J1877 to Mary Holiday, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield, Yorks.
  8. 1877: Exhibited Royal Academy, London
  9. Exhibited with Royal Society of British Artists, London
  10. Founder (?) Member of and exhibitor with Sheffield Society of Artists
  11. Patronage of John Newton Mappin, Rotherham brewer.
  12. 1881 Census: aged 29, artist, landscape painter, living at 8 Havelock Street, Sheffield, Yorks, with wife (RG11/4633. folio 45. p32)
  13. Died 6 April 1884, aged 32, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield, Yorks.
  14. Obituary, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1884

Image below from http://ceegee-viewfromahill.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/robert-hudson-sheffield-artist-1852-1884.html

590399d2e58f4_00roberthudson18840412.jpg.64dc957e92d05f1d96a3ec541f941ba5.jpg

Museums Sheffield holds a paining by Robert Jr that was painted in Endcliffe Woods.

http://collections.museums-sheffield.org.uk/view/objects/asitem/People@2185/0?t:state:flow=6ea58f67-4560-487c-bd1d-10b1b1808fa0

I contacted the parks department for the Endcliffe area and was given this suggestion: "Porter Valley had a number of working buildings around all the Dams including Dams that are no longer around."

Here are some additional photos (deliberately over exposed and lightened) of the front, back, and details of the painting.

59039aedda0fc_1RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.212735922820d826f445379970b328f0.png

59039af8e130d_2RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.3d14815b1612df29b238fa2aef27b491.png

59039b003f4d6_3RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.ccfcb7446db1d1d2dabf430fc92c7b34.png

59039b0842faf_4RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.a64470c4c5778c3ded28c4456294a046.png

59039b0e5ecaf_5RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.09354997efeee95f65230cba4a4f0479.png

59039b18a4d31_6RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.85df50e006f8584c4f59101b675f30a2.png

59039b1fe2c6a_7RobertHudsonJuniorPics.thumb.png.2b953ee960b506195b54a21a3f2593a8.png

Additional images of paintings by Robert Jr at https://artuk.org/discover/artists/hudson-robert-18521884.

Given that Robert Hudson Jr is known to have painted scenes in Switzerland, Scotland, and North Wales as well as in the Sheffield area, it may be that the painting I have was not painted in Sheffield at all.

At the moment, I am following up the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, and Sheffield Society of Artists.

I have never visited Sheffield, but looking at some of the suggested locations on Google Maps, it is clear that the area has changed a great deal in the intervening years and that the chances of the location in the painting being identified (if in or around Sheffield at all) are small. 

Come what may, it seems that Robert Hudson Jr was a highly accomplished artist who died way too young and was forgotten far too easily for a man of such evident talent.

With thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

Best

Joma

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking at the '519' markings - they look to me like they could be '519 Clean K......' (or  519 Clean Hudson) and what looks like '519 Varnish' - if so they're likely to be associated with Arthur Whitcombe's possible restoration

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I reckon this picture (the other Hudson Jnr) is the Stepping Stones in what is now Endcliffe Park (the view is roughly West / North West) anyone else feel the same ?

(and if so, is that church on the horizon in Fulwood ?)

SHEF_MSH_VIS_2874.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 30/04/2017 at 16:59, unrecordings said:

Looking at the '519' markings - they look to me like they could be '519 Clean K......' (or  519 Clean Hudson) and what looks like '519 Varnish' - if so they're likely to be associated with Arthur Whitcombe's possible restoration

Thanks for the reply and the images of the Stepping Stones.

Yes, I think the 519 markings might well be to do with framing and/or restoration. I have tried to track down Arthur Whitcombe in Cheltenham, but without any success. The frame is certainly elaborate in its own right. The type of framing someone might invest in for a public exhibition? 

I really like how the painting depicts a period of social history: a domestic house (I assume) with an industrial chimney by the front door. It has a tale to tell, and I hope that the more I delve, the more I will be able to uncover about the work and the artist.

The Stepping Stones still exist, it seems. They have changed and changed again over time.

https://mysimpleblogaboutsimplelife.wordpress.com/author/momentsofconsciousness/page/3/

If Robert Hudson Jr painted other local scenes, it is conceivable that my painting might well have been painted in the same vicinity. 

With thanks for your help and for sharing.

Best

Joma

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heard back from the Royal Scottish Academy.

Robert Hudson (Junior) exhibited with the RSA on three occasions:

1) 1878 Showery day on the moors, Derbyshire
 

2) 1882 The valley of Edwenstone [I *believe* this is probably Edwinstone in Nottinghamshire]
 

3) 1883 Fluelen Lake, Lucerne - evening

At the time of these three exhibitions, RHJ was living in Sheffield.

 

I have been approached by an art collector in Japan who is interested in acquiring the painting, although I have no wish to sell it. But good to see that the work of Robert Hudson (Junior) has international appeal.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 28/04/2017 at 21:07, Joma888 said:

Founder (?) Member of and exhibitor with Sheffield Society of Artists

Robert Hudson Jr was indeed a Founder Member of the SSA as reported by the Sheffield Independent, Tuesday 24 November 1874

image.png.d40999cb186181a5ac6150233437f29c.png

The SSA Catalogue of the 1877 Annual Exhibition lists six of his works (and a couple by his father) but none of them suggest cottages.  Four of the six paintings were landscapes from North Wales.  Companions in Age is also listed and was on loan from John F. Moss Esq.  The 1878 Catalogue indicates that Robert Hudson was elected to the committee of the SSA.  I haven't got access to the catalogue itself right now, but it is available in Local Studies, so will have a look at it next time I'm in town.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 28/04/2017 at 21:07, Joma888 said:
  • Robert Hudson Jr showed a painting at the Royal Academy in 1877, titled “Companions in Age”
  • His address at the time was given as 441 Glossop Rd, Sheffield.

It looks like he was living with his parents in 1877.  White's 1879 Directory shows that he was living at 36 Victoria Road, while his father was still at 441 Glossop Road.  They both had a studio in Change Alley.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just been checking the newspapers and there is a report in the Sheffield Independent, Thursday 11th December, 1884 that may be of interest.  It describes the sale of 52 of Hudson's paintings to raise money for his widow and children. The article also gives the names of the principal buyers of the paintings. The list of titles sold includes 2 paintings of cottages.  The first is "A cottage at Beamsley, near Bolton Abbey" and the second is "A cottage at Wharncliffe".  I'm not familiar with the area around Beamsley, so cannot comment on that.  However, Wharncliffe could be a possibility - any thoughts? 

image.png.f767da95a60930869aeeb01b648a3fc8.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Lizziejampot said:

A cottage at Wharncliffe".  I'm not familiar with the area around Beamsley, so cannot comment on that.  However, Wharncliffe could be a possibility - any thoughts? 

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Thursday 11 Dec 1884 states that  "A Cottage at Wharncliffe" was purchased by Mr John Smith.  

image.png.012278202cfa0f7de175f411f2ad1d96.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am confused about the dates of the artist Robert Hudson. In the 1851 Census for 14 Bridgegate, Rotherham. There is an listing for Robert Hudson, Painter and Sculpture. This Robert Hudson would have been born in 1802. Is this another Robert Hudson, Artist? That would make three artists in the area named Robert Hudson.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 1851 Census (2343 256F) shows Robert Hudson Snr. living at 14 Bridge Gate, Rotherham. Ann Crowcroft (age 7) lived next door with her Aunty and Uncle (Tobacconists). Ann married Thomas Willis in 1866 and on the wedding certificate, Ann's farther is named as Robert Hudson, Artist. Ann Crowcroft's farther is also named as Robert Hudson Painter in the family bible. Just a bit of an historical scandal in my family history. Also shown is Robert Hudson Jnr. aged 14, this means he was born in 1837 and not 1852, unless, Robert Hudson (aged 14) is Robert Hudson Snr and he farther a child at 15.

Alex022.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...