The Pretty Baa-Lambs
| Pretty Baa-Lambs | |
|---|---|
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham |
The Pretty Baa-Lambs is an oil-on-panel painting executed in 1851 by the English
Painted 'en plein air' in bright sunshine, the work depicts the artist's model and mistress
The picture is a simple representation of family life in what was Ford Madox Brown's first attempt at painting out of doors, at the time a novel concept, using a limited palette of green, blue and white with a few red highlights. The figures were painted in the garden of their Stockwell house in south London, the lambs being provided on a daily basis by a local farmer, and the background scenery of Clapham Common added afterwards.
The artist himself was somewhat irritated when asked what the moral of the picture was, if it for instance was representation of the Madonna and child. In his catalogue notes for its first public exhibition in 1852, he said there was no hidden meaning in the picture, it was simply 'a lady, a baby, two lambs, a servant maid and some grass'.[2]
A smaller replica of the work is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.[3]
See also
References
- ^ "Oil Painting - Pretty Baa-Lambs". Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
- ^ Bendiner, Kenneth. Art of Ford Madox Brown. p. 135.
- ^ "The pretty Baa-Lambs". The Ashmolean. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
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