Edward Benjamin Herberte, Victorian Circus 'Backstage' – 1885 watercolour
An original 1885 watercolour painting, Edward Benjamin Herberte, Victorian Circus 'Backstage'.
This wonderful 19th-century painting depicting the Victorian circus is one of a pair that we have for sale by Edward Benjamin Herberte (1830–1893). Herberte was prolific and is very well listed as a sporting artist, known for his spirited depictions of hunting and horse racing.
Here we witness the circus performers 'backstage', shown at rest or idle activity—the strong man smoking, the clown playing with his dog, the ringmaster instructing his daughter. The artist tenderly captures a sense of the common humanity behind the exotic glamour and mystique of the circus performance.
The other painting in the pair (see stock number JX-794) is a wonderful complement to this scene and shows the same cast of characters in the circus ring.
This circus subject is rare in Herberte's oeuvre; it evidently allowed the artist to showcase his sensitive treatment of horses and talent for capturing lively narrative and spectacle. Herberte worked as a scenic painter in the 1850s and 1860s (in his native Midlands and Greenwich, London), so was adept at conjuring up atmosphere and a sense of theatricality. The vast majority of his output as an artist was hunting scenes, which also share a performative quality, full of energy and drama. He also on occasions painted horse fairs, such as Windsor Horse Fair in 1887.
The popularity of the circus in the second half of the 19th century cannot be overstated. By the 1880s the circus had become an art form that could be enjoyed by all, with huge circuses travelling across Europe and America, and acts had become increasingly extravagant, exotic and bizarre, from human cannonballs to aquatic performances in flooded circus rings. The origins of the modern circus, however, are deeply rooted in horsemanship, and the equestrian stunts performed by Philip Astley at his riding school in 1768. In the early 19th century the horse dramatics would include scenes from the Napoleonic wars. Larger circuses would often announce their arrival in town with a circus parade, the main attraction of which would be dozens of horses. Only later in the century did the range of acts expand to what we know of the circus today.
Herberte was one of the first artists to depict women riding in sporting settings. During the mid-19th century, the introduction of improved saddles enabled women to ride sidesaddle across country and over fences, which Herberte newly captured in his sporting scenes. In the present circus subject, Herberte includes a woman seated sideways on horseback—the very inclusion of females in this performance sphere at this time was a challenge to contemporary Victorian ideals of domesticity and feminine propriety.
The circus—combining tradition and nostalgia with excitement, dazzle and awe—is a subject that inspired many artists and designers from the late 19th century onwards, including Impressionists Georges Seurat, Renoir and Degas, Walter Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec, and in the 1920s, Dame Laura Knight. It also developed its own kind of visual iconography in the ubiquitous advertisements that would accompany the Greatest Show on Earth.
In watercolour with gum arabic and with touches of white bodycolour. Presented in a smart cream window mount.
Provenance: Albany Gallery Collection.
Details
- Signed: Signed lower left.
- Inscribed: No.
- Dated: Dated lower left.
- Height (cm): 24.5 Width (cm): 40
- Height (inches): 9.65 Width (inches): 15.75
- Condition: Some age toning across the sheet. There is a central stain, visible on the verso, which is not pronounced on the front. There are historic glue remnants and minor abrasion to the periphery of the sheet, where a mount has historically been removed. A short repaired tear to the lower edge of the paper. These peripheral issues are covered by the mount. Please see photos for detail.
- Presented: Unframed. Mount: 39.5 x 54.5cm.
- Stock Number: JX-795
Relatively little is recorded about the life of Edward Benjamin Herberte (1830–1893). It is believed that he was born Egbert Bertram Herberte in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. He was the son of an artist, also named Egbert Bertram Herberte; it is possible he adopted a pseudonym to avoid confusion with his father. He was a pupil of John Frederick Herring Senior (1795–1865), horse painter, sign-maker and coachman, who ranks along Landseer as one of the more eminent animal painters of the 19th century.
Around 1861 Herberte was living in Wolverhampton, but by 1866 he is listed as a scenic painter at Greenwich, London. He also began to earn a living around this time as a painter of hunting and sporting scenes. Much of his work was private commissions, for which he would travel, and he won several commissions from local hunts, including a number by the North Warwickshire Hunt. He died at Prestwich, Lancashire in 1896.
Examples of his work are held by the Berkswell Village Museum, the National Trust, Lanhydrock and Leicester Museum & Art Gallery.
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Somerset & Wood was founded in 2015 near Bath, UK in the beautiful Cotswold market town of Bradford on Avon. Today the Gallery is run by founding owners Ayumi Ellingham and Olivia Nicholls. The Somerset & Wood project grew out of a desire to share our interests in art, history and design, and to champion the sometimes underrated field of British drawings and watercolours. We bring to the project combined professional arts backgrounds, in museums & galleries, art dealership and illustration. After completing a first class MA in English at the University of Cambridge and an MSc in History of Art with distinction at the University of Edinburgh, our Art Historian, Olivia Nicholls, worked for many years at the National Galleries of Scotland, and subsequently as an independent editor and art historian.
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We welcome requests to reproduce Somerset & Wood images. Recently our images have been reproduced in the following publications:
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