Children [antikvár]

GEORGE GOODWIN KILBURNE 1839-1924 A well-known and extremely popular artist in his f-\ lifetime, George Goodwin Kilburne was one of X A_ those hard-working Victorian painters who found time not only to exhibit regularly at all the major galleries, but also to make regular contributions as a book and magazine illustrator. Examples of his work appeared in the Graphic and the greatly respected Coni-hiil Magazine. Born in Norfolk on 24 July 1839, he started his professional career as an apprentice engraver for the Dalziel brothers, with whom he stayed for six years. Thereafter he turned to watercolour painting, specialising in genre pictures, many of which depicted eighteenth-century courting couples. His large output of costume pieces became so popular that many were made into prints. He was really more at ease recreating contemporary scenes where his work achieved a sense of reality never found to the same degree in his period pieces. A regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy for more than fifty years, he still had time to pursue his favourite hobby of collecting arms and armour. Kilburne's watercolour, Blind Alan's Biuff, is typical of his work. It is a lively and charming study of a Victorian children's party, in which the holly and mistletoe reveal that it is Christmas. The Christmas season evoked a sentimental response from many Victorians and this, combined with charming children, were ingredients bound to ensure the picture's popularity. For the children in Kilburne's painting, nothing equalled the joys of Christmas, its impending arrival heralded first by Papa coming home with the tree, and then by the flood of Christmas cards landing on the door mat. Henry Cole, the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, must be credited with the invention of the Christmas card in 1843, the same year that Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol arrived in the bookshops. There were many excitements to look forward to; putting up the Christmas decorations, the sight of cook returning from the butcher's with an enormous goose, and perhaps a glimpse of Papa surreptitiously entering the house laden with mysterious parcels. On Christmas Eve children hung up their stockings -another Victorian idea - and awoke the next morning to find them veritable cornucopiae of toys. For those Victorian children fortunate enough to belong to the monied classes, protected by their background from the want and sometimes destitution which beset their poorer counterparts, Christmas was indeed a delightful time with presents and plum pudding, much family jollity and, for the lucky ones, a visit to the theatre.