Music Hath Charms

Alfred Rankley 1819 - 1872

Summary

A scene in a cottage garden with a young mother standing by a garden fence to the right holding a baby, whilst a small girl with a doll is standing before her clutching at her apron. To the left by the open gate sits a small boy in a smock playing on tin pipe; there is a garden and ivy-clad cottage behind.

Display Label

Music Hath Charms Alfred Rankley 1819 - 72 Oil on canvas A young girl listens to a boy playing his tin pipe while her mother tenderly kisses her new baby. The scene has a rather sad and melancholic air: perhaps the tune evokes memories of a missing father. Rankley was a pupil at the Royal Academy Schools. From 1841-71, he exhibited figurative subjects, taken from Shakespeare or the novels of Walter Scott. He also showed domestic subjects like this one, using figures in a way which gave them popular appeal. This idealised rural scene, bathed in a glowing light, was a perfect antidote to the growing industrialisation of everyday life in mid Victorian England. Miss Florence Harrison bequest 1971.39