Lot Essay
The present picture is an illustration of the ballad 'Edwin and Angelina' in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, first published in 1766:
Turn, gentle hermit of the dale
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
Angelina, thinking her scorned suitor Edwin has died of a broken heart, disguises herself as a male pilgrim. On her journeys she meets a hermit and tells him her story of disappointed love. The hermit, thinking her a man, advises the pilgrim to abjure women. She blushes and reveals her identity, whereupon the hermit declares himself to be Edwin.
Another version, 11½ x 17½in., signed and dated 1816, was in the collection of Mrs. Robert Frank (exh. John Martin, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1970, no. 5; Landscape in Britain, Tate Gallery, 1973, no. 275, repro. p.115; and Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, 1975, no. 10, repro. pl. 10). One or other was presumably the work exh. British Institution 1817, no. 200 as 'The Hermit'. A larger version was exhibited at the British Institution in B.I. 1843, no. 211, as 'Goldsmith's Hermit'.
The present picture is referred to, as in a private collection, London, in the Hazlitt Gooden and Fox catalogue. In the other small version the figure of the pilgrim is stepping forward, right hand outstretched, and the trees and mountain background are varied.
Turn, gentle hermit of the dale
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
Angelina, thinking her scorned suitor Edwin has died of a broken heart, disguises herself as a male pilgrim. On her journeys she meets a hermit and tells him her story of disappointed love. The hermit, thinking her a man, advises the pilgrim to abjure women. She blushes and reveals her identity, whereupon the hermit declares himself to be Edwin.
Another version, 11½ x 17½in., signed and dated 1816, was in the collection of Mrs. Robert Frank (exh. John Martin, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1970, no. 5; Landscape in Britain, Tate Gallery, 1973, no. 275, repro. p.115; and Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, 1975, no. 10, repro. pl. 10). One or other was presumably the work exh. British Institution 1817, no. 200 as 'The Hermit'. A larger version was exhibited at the British Institution in B.I. 1843, no. 211, as 'Goldsmith's Hermit'.
The present picture is referred to, as in a private collection, London, in the Hazlitt Gooden and Fox catalogue. In the other small version the figure of the pilgrim is stepping forward, right hand outstretched, and the trees and mountain background are varied.