It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
Eyre Crowe died at the age of 86 on 10 December 1910. He was buried in his father’s grave at Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. It’s a wonderful, green, leafy spot.
This is the final post in this series. Thank you for joining me on this trip through Eyre Crowe’s life.
Images: My own photographs of Eyre Crowe’s gravestone in Area 64 of the cemetery
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
Eyre Crowe, like his father and his brother Joseph, was a member of the Reform Club, a private member’s club on Pall Mall in central London (now open to women as well as men!). He joined in 1861 and remained a member for the rest of his life. He was unmarried and lived and worked in small rooms and studios rather than having a house of his own. The Reform Club was a home from home, offering him comfortable surroundings, a well-stocked library, and good dining. He ate most of his evening meals at the Club with like-minded friends.
I have come to the Club today to meet the Archivist, Dr Peter Urbach, and to see a fine collection of Crowe’s pen and ink sketches of fellow club-members. They are regularly featured on the Club’s Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/reformclub
On Eyre Crowe’s 70th birthday, 3 October 1904, he wrote in his diary that he celebrated at the Reform Club with his friend Dixon. He enjoyed half a pint of marsala and three pennies worth of whiskey. Happy birthday Mr Crowe!
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
I have come to Dr Johnson’s House Museum in Gough Square, London, the home of Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1794). Johnson was a writer and literary critic, and most famous for being the author of A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It’s a lovely museum which gives a good idea of what London town houses were like in the 18th century – and you can find out how to make a dictionary!
Eyre Crowe was a big fan of the giants of 18th-century British literature, and incidents in their lives were very popular subjects for artists of his time. Two of Crowe’s paintings featuring Dr Johnson are Boswell’s Introduction to the Literary Club (1856) and A Scene at the Mitre: Dr Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith (1857). His third Johnson painting, The Penance of Dr Johnson, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1869 and is now owned by Dr Johnson’s House. It hangs in the Garret at the top of the staircase.
Image: Eyre Crowe, ‘The Penance of Dr Johnson’ (1869). Credit: Dr Johnson’s House Trust
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
The writer William Makepeace Thackeray became friendly with the Crowe family in the 1830s in Paris. When Eyre Crowe was struggling to make money from art in the late 1840s and early 1850s Thackeray paid him to take dictation and engrave illustrations. In 1852-1853 Crowe accompanied Thackeray as his secretary on his lecture tour of America. In 1893 Crowe published his reminiscences of the trip in ‘With Thackeray in America’. Four years later, he published another book, ‘Thackeray’s Haunts and Homes’. In this book, he described how he heard of Thackeray’s early death in 1863. “on the day before Christmas came the announcement of his death, terrible in its suddenness to those, like myself, who had only his countless benefactions to dwell upon.”
Images: Pages from Eyre Crowe, ‘Thackeray’s Haunts and Homes’ (1897), my own copy. Title page; facsimile of letter from Thackeray to Crowe, 1849; sketch of Thackeray’s house, 36 Onslow Square, in which Crowe’s sister Amy also lived in the 1850s, as a companion and governess to Thackeray’s two daughters. Photograph f 36 Onslow Square today, and Thackeray’s grave at Kensal Green cemetery.
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
The pinnacle of the art season in London in the mid-19th century was the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Only members of the Academy had their paintings automatically accepted. Eyre Crowe had to compete with others until he was elected as an Associate in 1876. The first painting of his to grace the walls was ‘Master Prynne Searching Archbishop Laud’s Pockets in the Tower’ in 1846. Between 1857 and 1908, a remarkable 62 consecutive years, at least one Eyre Crowe painting was to be seen at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Most were reviewed in the numerous newspapers and art periodicals which dedicated reams of copy to the exhibition in the 19th century. This website Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) contains information about all the paintings and transcripts of the reviews.
I have come today to the Royal Academy Archives, in their wonderfully atmospheric library, to see a series of master sales catalogues from the summer exhibitions, starting in 1861. I am hoping to find out more details about some of the paintings which were sold to new owners directly from the Royal Academy exhibition walls.
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
Eyre Crowe and his family moved back to London in 1844. He was 20 years old when he was accepted as a Probationer at the Royal Academy Schools on 11 July 1845. Dante Gabriel Rossetti joined on the same day. He became a full student on 19 December 1845. The initial part of the students’ training at this time was in the Antique School, making detailed hatched drawings of plaster casts and statues. They then progressed to the Life Academy and finally the School of Painting, and attended lectures. The Royal Academy of Arts was based in the National Gallery building on Trafalgar Square until 1869, when it moved to the current location at Burlington House, Piccadilly.
There is a digitised copy of the page showing Eyre Crowe’s entrance, from the Register of admission of probationers, 1824-1905. Royal Academy Collection, RAA/KEE/1/2.
Image: Drawing from Life at the Royal Academy (1808). Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838), J. Hill, and Harraden (aquatint engravers)
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
It’s Eyre Crowe’s 200th birthday!
Eyre Crowe spent most of his childhood in Paris, where his father was working as a journalist. In 1839, at the age of around 14, he began studying art under Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), probably the most famous artist of historical subjects in France at the time. Delaroche’s influence on Crowe’s later paintings is clear. In 1843 Delaroche closed his studio and went to Rome. Crowe went there too, with his family for the winter, and was able to continue some studies with Delaroche. In Rome, Crowe became the firm and lifelong friend of the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904).
Images:
Paul Delaroche, ‘The Execution of Lady Jane Grey’ (1833). The National Gallery, London. Licenced under Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Jean-Léon Gérôme, by Ferdinand Mulnier, albumen carte-de-visite, late 1870s. National Portrait Gallery Photographs Collection NPG Ax17864. Licenced under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Posted by Kathryn Summerwill
Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) 
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