The Camp Followers: A Bivouac in the Crimea (undated)

Medium: oil on canvas, laid on panel

Size: 10 x 13 inches (25.4 x 33.2 cm)

This painting depicts a soldier outside a tent in a mountainous location. At the mouth of the tent, gathering around a fire on which a food pot is being stirred, are a woman and two children. The painting is known about only from its inclusion in an auction of Victorian paintings, drawings and watercolours at Sotheby’s in Belgravia on 15 December 1981 (Lot 220). A black and white reproduction of the work appears in the sale catalogue. It was credited to ‘Eyre Crowe, R.A.’, although Crowe only ever attained the rank of A.R.A., and was ‘indistinctly signed’. The small size of the painting suggests that it may have been intended for exhibition at the Dudley Gallery, or as a lesser submission to the Royal Academy. It is not known to have been exhibited, so may have been rejected. Although the attribution to Eyre Crowe does not appear to be definite in the Sotheby’s catalogue, the painting is in his style.

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