SP 4145
WILLIAM SHAYER SNR
Southampton 1787 - 1879 Shirley, Southampton
Outside the Royal Oak
Signed
Canvas: 25 x 30 in / 63.5 x 76.2 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, UK
‘If not unrivalled, William Shayer is, at his best, unsurpassed as a painter of the rural life of his period’ (cited in B. Stewart and M. Cutten, The Shayer Family of Painters, F. Lewis Publishers, London, 1981, p. 30). Outside the Royal Oak is a perfect example of Shayer at his best, recording a group of rustic figures resting at a road-side inn on a beautiful summer’s day. Two labourers sit smoking pipes and supping ale as a third arrives with his horse to be greeted by a pretty serving maid. The painting is focused on these warm and sympathetic representatives of the contented (and therefore deserving) poor, images of whom were in great demand during the nineteenth century to assuage the revolutionary fears of the English gentry. Far from wishing to purchase pictures of rural poverty during such times of social unrest, the ruling classes sought works which assured them of their position and inspired feelings of paternal benevolence.
WILLIAM SHAYER SNR
Southampton 1787 - 1879 Shirley Southampton
William Shayer was a landscape and animal painter. A self-taught artist, he lived in Southampton, and painted mostly in Hampshire and the New Forest. His work falls into two distinct categories; firstly, wooded scenes with gypsies, rustic figures and animals, and secondly, beach or coastal scenes with boats and fisherfolk. His landscape paintings admirably present an image and spirit of rural life in Southern England in its most Arcadian age.
Shayer first earned his living in Southampton painting decorations on rush bottom chairs. He then moved to Guildford to work as a coach painter. The skill Shayer acquired in the lesser genres provided him with a thorough technical grounding that proved of use to him in his chosen profession of landscape artist. His career was helped considerably by the patronage of Michael Hoy, a popular and wealthy Southampton merchant, who owned extensive estates.
Shayer reputedly chose to live in Shirley because of the beautiful skies that are typical of that locality. His love of the countryside of the South Coast, which prevented his move to London, is clearly evident in his paintings. He sometimes collaborated with Edward Charles Williams. His son, William J Shayer, was also a painter.
Shayer was a remarkably prolific exhibitor. He exhibited two hundred and forty-six paintings in the major London galleries, three hundred and thirty-eight at the Society of British artists, six at the Royal Academy and eighty-two at the British Institution.
The work of Shayer is represented in the Haworth Art Gallery, Lancashire, Arundel Castle, West Sussex, the Cooper Gallery, Barnsley, the North Devon Atheneum, Barstaple, the Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, the Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, the Bristol City Art Gallery, the Townley Hall Art Gallery, Burnley, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Cheltenham Art Gallery, the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow City Art Gallery, the Hastings Museum, the Huddersfield Art Gallery, the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, the Leeds City Art Gallery, the Leicestershire Art Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Guildhall Art Gallery, the Tate Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Manchester City Art Gallery, the Laing Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, the Nottingham Castle Museum, the Perth Museum, the Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, the Southampton City Art Gallery and Museum, Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery, Walsall Museum and Art Gallery, Wolverhampton Central Art Gallery and the York City Art Gallery.