Object of the Day, Museum Edition: Contrary Winds by Thomas Webster, 1843

Contrary Winds
Thomas Webster, 1843
The Victoria & Albert Museum

A few weeks ago a shared with you an engraving from my collection. The engraving is a reproduction of a painting, but I was unsure as to what the painting was and/or who it was by. I’ve since, accidentally, discovered the original in the collection of the V&A.

The original painting upon which the engraving was based is called, “Contrary Winds” and is the work of Thomas Webster from 1843. Typical of the time, it shows a domestic interior scene with children.

The original painting—oil on mahogany board--by Webster was purchased by collector John Sheepshanks who amassed an impressive array of canvasses, mostly of similarly sentimental scenes. According to Sheepshank’s records, preserved in the V&A when the painting was exhibited at the British Institution in 1844, “the critics noted that the game [of sailing boats in a washtub] had not yet become very animated and the whole picture was really a study of a cottage interior with admirably painted figures in rather a Dutch style.”

Thomas Webster (1800-1886) began his career as a portrait painter, but devoted the bulk of his career to small-scale genre painting. Charles Dickens was a notable fan of Webster and thought him such a good a painter of children that he commissioned him to paint scenes for his novel Nicholas Nickelby.