Eccles Wakes : Ale-House Interior

Joseph Parry 1744 - 1826

Summary

Dark ale-house interior, with low wood-beamed ceiling hung with various objects and a tall fireplace to left, with a toby jug, bear jug and two candlesticks on the mantelpiece. A group of men and women sit together smoking and drinking. To the left of the group a drunken man lecherously gropes a startled woman, in the centre a young woman sits on a man's lap with his arm about her waist, and to the right an old woman is selling oranges from a basket. Three small children and a dog play in the foreground, before an old woman sitting smoking a pipe in the bottom left corner.

Display Label

Eccles Wakes: Ale-House Interior date unknown Joseph Parry 1756-1826 Oil on canvas ‘When racing and fighting were all at an end, To the alehouse each went with his sweetheart or friend’ Late 19th-century song The grandfather clock on the right tells us it is only mid-afternoon, and yet the people in the alehouse are already rosy with beer and good fellowship. This ale house has been tentatively identified as the Hare and Hounds on Church Street, Eccles, now extensively remodelled. Purchased 1927.13