Eyre Crowe (1824-1910)

Medium: oil

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1871

Crowe recorded in his diary on 14 February 1902 that this picture was purchased from Agnew’s at Waterloo Place by William Waring of London, who told him that he chose it because of the texture of the gravestone. It was sold at Christie’s on the same date along with the rest of the late Mr Waring’s collection.

Athenaeum, 6 May 1871:

Old Mortality (39) shows the champion of decaying monuments kneeling before a stone which bears the, until now, time-defaced names of heroes; he is working industriously; his bag of tools is at his feet, his old white horse stands near, and grazes on the rank herbage of the cemetery. The grass is so thick, that ‘Old Mortality’ does not hear the approaching steps of Sir Walter Scott and his guide as they come near and watch him at work. The figures are too small. This is the sole fault of this capital picture. There is a good deal of quiet satire as well as pathos in the design … There is capital colour in this work … and great freedom of handling; more, indeed, than Mr. Crowe has previously shown. The chiaroscuro is so good that the picture would engrave well.

The Graphic, 6 May 1871

Near this work [E. Long, “Question of Propriety”] may be found Mr. Eyre Crowe’s careful picture of “Old Mortality”. With his back turned to the spectator the old man, crouching over a grave, industriously plies his chisel, deepening the inscription on the head-stone. The execution is highly wrought, and the effect impressive. The background figures – one probably intended for Sir Walter Scott – are less admirable.

Daily Telegraph, 18 May 1871:

(39) “Old Mortality,” by the same artist, is not so original a picture as “Friends,” but it is conceived in a manner which would scarcely be hit upon by any painter save Mr. Eyre Crowe. It is as quaint and racy as one of Jedediah Cleishbotham’s own prefaces. In both the works to which we have referred one very distinguished merit of Mr. Eyre Crowe is to be marked: total absence of apparent effort. He really seems to possess the art celare artem; but the substructure of art-knowledge and art-labour is admirable.

Art Journal, June 1871:

We are glad … to find MR. CROWE in ‘Old Mortality’ (39) reviving the expectation raised by earlier works. The old man earnestly cuts away at a gravestone in a churchyard, while Sir Walter Scott looks on at the subject of his well-known story. The figure of the aged man is graphically delineated, and though the central colour be blue, the pictorial effect is good … The painting throughout is solid and sound, and the artist for once gains character without falling into the grotesque.