Farmyard Scene

Location

Country: Japan
City: Tokyo
Place: British Embassy

In this idyllic scene of rural life, three horses stand around the farm pond. They are surrounded by other farmyard animals: two more horses, chickens, ducks and pigs. The farmer himself is seen within a barn, behind the central white horse.  

Painted in 1881 by John Frederick Herring Junior, this Farmyard Scene a typical example of a painting genre which enjoyed considerable popularity among collectors in England, in the 19th century. It was a genre in which the artist’s father, John Frederick Herring Senior (1795–1865) excelled and made his reputation, inspiring his sons to carry in the same tradition.

Born in Doncaster, John Frederick Herring Junior was a painter of sporting views and farmyard scenes. His father, John Frederick Herring Senior (1795–1865), was also a painter of similar scenes. In 1830 he moved with his parents to the hamlet of Six Mile Bottom, named after its distance from the start of the Newmarket racecourse, and later settled in Cambridgeshire. He married the painter Catherine Augusta (Kate) Rolfe (1828–1928), whose brother, A. F. Rolfe, was also an artist and had collaborated with Herring senior. Herring Junior did not have a good relationship with his father and was the only child not mentioned in his father’s will. This is thought to be a consequence of a dispute over whether Herring junior was encouraging his own work to be mistaken for the paintings of his father, generally considered a superior painter. Between 1860 and 1874, he exhibited 53 works at the Royal Society of British Artists, 15 at the Royal Academy and ten at the British Institution. In addition, 35 of his works were reproduced in The Sporting Magazine, the first English periodical devoted to every kind of sport. He died in Cambridge in 1907.

Places

Subjects

flail, farmer/farm labourer, landscape C19th, horse, pig, hen, chicken, dove, duck, stream, man, field, fence, haystack, dovecote, cottage, farm, thatched roof

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting, oval

Artist

John Frederick, Jnr Herring (1815/21 - 1907)

Title

Farmyard Scene

Date

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 49.00 cm, width: 63.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from E & H Thompson, Carlisle, June 1954

Inscription

sdbl

GAC number

2704