Sujet

The Doubtful Coin, by W. Hunt, 1870. Creator: Unknown.

Légende

The Doubtful Coin, by W. Hunt, 1870. Engraving of a painting depicting '...a boy in charge, apparently, of an apple-stall. There is the bushel-basket, the whole stock-in-trade, perhaps, of the proprietor; and there are the penny lots temptingly set out in order...It is an evening or night scene; and a coin received by the boy from a purchaser presenting some peculiarity, the poor child suspects it may be a base coin passed under cover of the darkness, so he snatches up the candle to scrutinise it. The candle is screened from the wind by paper, and thus, its light being diffused over the paper, this humble substitute for a lantern appears as a luminous mass, the soft emanations from which faintly irradiate the boy's anxious face and the surrounding objects. One feels at once, despite the quaint, out-of-the-way, unpromising, unambitious nature of the subject, that the effect is artistic...and we need scarcely add that it is rendered with the feeling of a true artist, and with that peculiar broken, seemingly indeterminate, yet most descriptive execution so characteristic of William Hunt's practice through life, and eminently well suited to express the doubtful vague lighting of the half-veiled rushlight of our apple-merchant'. From "Illustrated London News, 1870.

Crédit

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Notre référence

HRM24A49_283

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

Licence

Droits gérés

Format disponible

49,1Mo (5,8Mo) / 29,3cm x 42,0cm / 3463 x 4960 (300dpi)

Mots clés

people boy boys child children looking work fruit arts painting light night dark art British apple fake darkness century Britain examining newspapers press picture print concept forgery pictures exhibition time of day B&W engraved engraving 19th century black & white black and white B W nineteenth century apples The Print Collector chiaroscuro child labour Illustrated London News wood engraving ILN William Henry Hunt newspaper Unknown Hunt William Henry 19th-century William Hunt Hunt William The Illustrated London News