Description

Am exquisite example of the work of the Victorian genre scene painter, James Hardy Junior. The scene shows a barn interior, with a young boy seated on the hay strewn floor, with his pet rabbits. Two little girls stand in the doorway, curiously watching the rabbits, one little girl offering a leaf in her outstretched hand. The scene is fully of wonderful details in the trees and sky, just visible through the gaps in the barn's planks, the delicate hay and wheat sheaves picked outer by the shafting sun and the softly falling light that casts shadows in the corners of the barn. The artist has signed and dated to the lower left.

The painting has been handsomely presented in fine 19th Century gilt Rococo Revival frame with ornate acanthus leaf corners, delicate floral molding along the cove and lamb's tongue strap work, finished with a beveled gilt mount, inscribed with the title and the artist's name.

There is a handwritten label in the artist's hand at the reverse with the artist's name and his address in Bristol. There is also the original framer's labels.

On wood panel.

Condition

The painting is in very fine condition. Inspection under UV light reveals no restoration. The frame has some losses and areas of restoration to the central motifs on the top and bottom edges.

Collection Information

James Hardy junior (14 November 1832 – 24 July 1889) was a British artist, in particular a painter of sporting dogs and Scottish sporting pictures. He also painted genre scenes set in cottage interiors or the countryside.
James Hardy junior was born on 14 November 1832 at Brighton in Sussex.
When he was a boy his family moved from Brighton to Lewes, then to Chichester and finally to Bath where young James had a studio on the first floor of the Hardy family house at 30 Henrietta Street. He received encouraging comments about his first exhibits, studies of game birds that were shown at the Bath Graphic Society in 1852.

James Hardy junior's early subjects were mainly game birds painted in watercolours and in oils. In 1854 he painted his first pictures of sporting dogs, which he exhibited at the Society of British Artists; Though Hardy's skills as an artist of sporting pictures were increasingly well recognised, during the 1850s and 1860s he also painted numerous genre scenes of cottage interiors.
On 18 October 1860 Hardy married Laura Amelia May, then removed to Bristol (to Bedford Villa in Terrell Street).
In 1869 Hardy painted the first of his Scottish landscapes, with gillies and Gordon and English setters, for which he is most famous. His brother Heywood was an expert animal painter and they collaborated on a few pictures at this time; it is possible that Heywood helped James to become a successful painter of sporting scenes set in Scottish landscapes. After 1870 James no longer painted genre pictures, but concentrated almost exclusively on Scottish scenes. He lived in Bristol until 1870 when he removed to London with his wife, two sons and two daughters.

James exhibited nine paintings at the Royal Academy between 1862 and 1886 and 45 paintings at the Society of British Artists between 1853 and 1871. He was elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1874 and a member in 1877. He was elected to the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1883 and the Royal West of England Academy in 1889.
Hardy died on 24 July 1889 ("exhaustion from melancholia" was the cause of death) at the Holloway Sanatorium, which was named after its benefactor Thomas Holloway.