Eyre Crowe (1824-1910)

‘Convicts at Work, Portsmouth’ by Eyre Crowe A.R.A. (1887)

Pen and ink sketch version of ‘Convicts at Work, Portsmouth, by Eyre Crowe, published in Henry Blackburn’s Academy Notes, No. 13, May 1887, p. 105

Medium: oil

Size: 16 x 22 inches / 40.7 x 53.3 cm

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1887; Paris Exposition Universelle, 1889; Manchester, 1987

A pen and ink sketch of this painting, by Eyre Crowe, was published in Henry Blackburn’s Academy Notes, No. 13, May 1887, p. 105

An unframed oil on panel, given the title ‘Exterior with Convicts at Work’, the same size (16 x 22 inches) as the one exhibited at the Royal Academy, remained in Eyre Crowe’s possession at his death and was sold at auction by Messrs Furber in 1911 for only 2 shillings. This is possobly the same painting, or a sketch for it.

The painting formed part of an retrospective of Victorian social realist art at Manchester, one hundred years after it was first exhibited, and was noted by Julian Treuherz in his accompanying catalogue, Hard Times: Social Realism in Victorian Art (Lund Humphries, London/Manchester City Art Galleries, 1987). ‘It would count simply as a piece of lively genre were it not for the oddity of the subject … This unposed picture of convicts, painted with a fresh eye, is very far from the contrived prison scenes of Doré or Holl. In all his social pictures Crowe accepts his subjects as facts rather than vehicles for pathos or moralising’. Convicts at Work had been purchased by Trafalgar Galleries of London at auction at Bonham’s in 1969.

Daily Telegraph, 25 May 1887

… and finally to (807) Mr. Eyre Crowe, A.R.A.’s scrupulously conscientious, unimpeachably accurate, but obviously not pre-eminently attractive painting, “Convicts at Work, Portsmouth.”

Athenaeum, 28 May 1887:

For Mr. Crowe’s Convicts at Work, Portsmouth (807), we care less than for the Red Maids’ picture [Arithmetic].