Eyre Crowe (1824-1910)

Silkworms (1877) (c) Christ’s Hospital Foundation; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Medium: oil

Size: 40 x 25 cm

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1877

Current owner: Christ’s Hospital School, Horsham, Surrey

Showing the boys of the Bluecoat School on Newgate in London, this picture was offered by Sotheby’s to the school’s successor, Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, Surrey, in around the year 2000, and now forms part of the school’s collection. It is known by them as ‘Christ’s Hospital Children in London Quad’.

Athenaeum, 19 May 1877:

It exhibits, with rare solidity, delicacy and precision – some hardness and coldness to boot – a group of Blue-coat boys gathered about their silk-bearing treasures, and on a bench; a frame on which bright gold-coloured silk has been wound is on the ground on our left; one boy looks at a cocoon, one, with books, looks on. The intensity of the attitudes and expressions is a characteristic of the highest value. It is one of the gems of this year.