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LOUISE RAYNER in LONDON and the SOUTH EAST |
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LONDON Louise spent a substantial time in London but there are very few paintings in our list of her works, which is both surprising and disappointing. It's possible that some paintings went into permanent ownership and others were destroyed in the course of the London Blitz in World War Two - or perhaps she just tended to look for subjects outside the city. However, she did find several subjects in one tight geographical area. The first is Temple Bar, London, which seems to have intrigued Louise or appealed to clients, as she painted several versions of it. Temple Bar was the last surviving City gateway, having replaced a wooden gate that had separated the City of London from Westminster. The gate had burned down in the Great Fire of London (1666) and this Portland stone portal went up in 1669-72. |
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But by Louise's time the Bar had become an impediment to traffic so it was carefully dismantled in 1878 and the parts carried off to Hertfordshire, where it was rather badly reassembled 10 years later at Theobalds Park. This dismantling meant that Louise had to derive her later versions from her earlier studies and paintings such as this one here. A bit too late for Louise's purposes, Temple Bar returned to London in 2004, repaired and re-erected as a gateway to the newly redeveloped Paternoster Square. The above view by Louise is certainly appealing, with the coach and horses having apparently just come through the gate to stand in the middle of the road. Two horses seem inadequate for the pile of humanity on the coach (and a woman and children about to join them). The coach is far too late for the Shillibeer period of early horse buses, so it would be from one of the competing companies that sprang up afterwards. One of those companies was called "Omnibus" (Latin for "For All"), soon shortened to "bus" - the generic word we now use everywhere. At the left, and in the shadows to the right, are small two-wheeler Hansom cabs. The painting is before the Bar was dismantled but otherwise not dated. The contrast in dress between the two ladies suggests that it could be late 1860s or early 1870s, a point when big bulky skirts began to slim down considerably. | |
In the foreground, the small youth with a broom is a crossing- sweeper. He made his living in half-penny and penny tips for sweeping paths through the inevitable by-products of horse transport so that you could get across without staining and perfuming your skirts or trousers. He collected the droppings into sacks and sold them as manure. If necessary (and it sometimes was) he would fight
for his patch.The second view at far right has less detail in the background buildings and a different set of vehicles and figures. As in the painting above, the lower right window above the gate is open and has someone peering out, and the crossing sweeper is there again. When we look under the arch in the enlarged detail here, we see the back of a vehicle just like the one above - another horse bus, probably from the same company. |
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For those not aware of it, the Temple being referred to here was not religious, but instead was (and is) the home of the English legal system. It is a very short distance from Fleet Street, the home of most of our national newspapers until the 1980s. One wonders if the proximity was accidental or to enable each to keep a close eye on the other. The upper painting went to auction by Christies in November 2006, where it sold for £7,800. We have no date or price for the lower one, which shares the same title, but Bonhams sold a second example in 2004 for £4000. | |
Below we have two views that include Wych Street just a few minutes' walk from the Temple, though the first (on the left) shows only a corner of it as it goes out of frame to the left. | ||||||
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Above left: Drury Court, London, viewed from Drury Lane and showing its junction with Wych Street. On the left corner is Symonds, whose trade isn't clear, but the higher sign offers tea and coffee rooms. Partway down Drury Court, sunshine slashes across the street. Almost beside it a street light stands in the middle of the road. A painting by another artist explains it more clearly: the rest of the Court is pedestrian only - the lamp marks where carts have to bear right into the sunlight. At the far end of the Court is the steeple of St Mary le Strand. The City of London Collage collection (see below) has an almost identical view by Louise but with different figures. Theirs is thought to be about 1875 and this is probably about the same period. Above right: Looking north along Wych Street itself, this time seeing St. Clement Danes Church in the background. This painting went to auction at Christies in November 2006, but didn't reach its reserve. Wych Street (derived from Via de Aldwich, an old lane it was once part of) was in London's theatre district close to the south end of Drury Lane near The Strand. While that might suggest a romantic view of the street, the reality in Louise's time was less becoming (described in one place as "low-life"), with the street mixing minor theatres such as the Olympic Theatre, Opera Comique and the Globe Theatre (but not the best-known one!) with inns of court and chancery, and public houses. The latter included the Angel Inn, the White Lion tavern, and at an earlier time the Queen of Bohemia, named after Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of James I - and Lord Craven's mistress. And there was also an only-partially-suppressed shop selling books and prints of a decidedly dubious nature. You might wonder how a small street could encompass so many things, but it accessed areas hidden behind it and even beneath it, and shared by other streets such as Hollywell Street. And their worn and ancient condition was what drew Louise to them: the area had escaped the ravages of the Great Fire of London (1666) and as a result retained the kind of decrepit but characterful Elizabethan houses that flew so readily to her paintbrush. Wych Street itself was demolished and disappeared in 1901 as part of a redevelopment scheme, and the street level was by then distinctly more modern than in her paintings, so we'd guess this was painted 1860s-1880s. We know that Louise also painted Hollywell Street, but we haven't seen that painting. We also know she painted Drury Lane, which was auctioned by Christies in June 2006 for £10,000 - but again we haven't seen it. | ||||||
Right: The north end of Drury Lane runs into High Holborn, where we find the final painting from this location, Staple Inn, Holborn. This painting forms a permanent pair with Drury Court, London, at left above. They were auctioned by Sotheby's in 2005 for £4,800.There is a very similar painting by Louise from the same viewpoint on the City of London's Collage site, and this carries the description "View east along Holborn with figures and horse-drawn vehicles on the street". The main subject is clearly the same Elizabethan frontage on the north side of the road, dating originally from between 1570 and 1588, and hiding the courts of Staple Inn behind it. This building still exists and has been restored (which is good) but by the mid-1930s had fallen prey to the usual restorer's belief that "if it's Elizabethan and framed, it has to be painted black and white". Well, no, actually...  City of London suggest c.1875 for the date of their picture, but the one here looks to be a different period. One query is the street lighting. The City of London image has this lamp (see left) on the pavement - absent from the painting at right. It just happens that early electric street lighting experiments took place on Holborn Viaduct and the Embankment, and we don't know if the Staple Inn area was included.Carbon arc lights were installed in 1878, which these are not, but they were followed in 1882 by incandescent (light bulb) lamps, with Thomas Edison's company installing about 4000. These can be virtually indistinguishable from gas lamps, even when painted by an artist who enjoys detail - so we're still not sure! For more information on getting the City of London prints, see the bottom of our sources page. | ||||||
The last London image we have is this old photocopy from a sale catalogue. The Tabard Inn is the point where Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims set out, just on the south side of the Thames in Southwark. Talbot Yard is its former stable yard. We have too little image detail to comment on it, which is shame since it offers an interesting contrast to Louise's usual street scenes.It was being auctioned by Christies in July 1989, and expected to make between £3000 and £5000. We don't know if it's been seen since. | ||||||
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GUILDFORD The only painting we know of for Guildford is the one that Louise painted as a thankyou to her brother Richard, and though we've listed it in our known paintings, we don't know whether a version went on sale. You can see it on Richard's page. | ||||||
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As a historical footnote, the colonnade of shops dates back to the 1680s and these in their early form were called the Walks and the (Royal) Parade. Unfortunately the area was slippery and the Duke of Gloucester injured himself in 1698. Princess Anne, his mother, donated money to rectify this, and in 1700, the Upper Walks were paved with square ceramic pantiles and became the principal shopping area of the town. We don't know if the Pantiles name was official at this time, but it must have had currency as a nickname. In 1793 the pantiles were replaced with stone flagging, the area was now known simply as The Parade, and looked much as it does today in layout, although extensive replacement building continued until the mid-19th century. The whole area is now "listed" for preservation. Technically, Louise's painting shows The Parade (and may have originally been titled that), as the old Pantiles name was not revived until 1887, and she clearly painted it before then. But it's hardly surprising that the distinctive and much better known name got substituted. | ||||||
KNOLEKnole (or Knowle) is a huge, mainly 15th century stately house which lies just south of Tunbridge Wells. A good deal of its Jacobean interior has survived even to the present day, and as it is now in the National Trust it can be visited. But in Louise's day the house was still in the private hands of Mortimer Sackville-West, who was elevated to the peerage as the 1st Lord Sackville in 1876. The Rayner paintings we usually see of Knole are by Samuel or Margaret, but Louise painted several as well. So far we have only seen these two examples. | ||||||
The larger oil painting is The Brown Gallery, Knole, seen from the west end. It's a rarity in Louise's output in being totally without people in view (except in the portraits), but it keeps that balance between the near-photographic detail that she is so good at, and producing a scene that is still obviously art.Brown Gallery Chairs, Knole is certainly a Rayner and is believed to be Louise's, but the artist isn't actually identified. The Brown Gallery was shown in the 1858 Royal Academy event and was conceivably quite new at the time. It's reasonable to suppose that the chairs were painted from studies made on the same occasion. The other Knole paintings that we know of were all painted sometime before 1877. They are: The Brown Gallery, an interior (oil) - Sold by Christies for £6,600 in Feb 2007. The Cartoon Gallery, Knole In the Lofts, Knole James the First's Bedroom, Knole In Lady Betty Germane’s Bedchamber, Knole. | ||||||
 HARBLEDOWNRight: Louise is known for townscapes and church interiors, but she did softer landscapes, too. Some of her earliest paintings were done in Harbledown, a village 1 mile west of Canterbury, and the family still has one of Louise's sketchbooks from this period. This is a study of a farm building there. Some of those early paintings remain in the village today, along with paintings by Margaret, whose imagination was caught by (among other things) the interior of the church bell tower, with at least two of her paintings of it still extant. | ||||||
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Left: this Cathedral Interior dated 1868 was auctioned by Whyte's of Dublin in February 2003 for 3200 euros (roughly £2100). It shows Canterbury Cathedral with a possibly fanciful scene of monks at the entrance to Thomas Becket's shrine at some point after its creation in 1220 when it was then magnificent in its richness and glory. Sadly, it was plundered and destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII, and nothing remains of it. | ||||||
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| Dudley Mall pages about Louise: | |
| Louise Rayner | - the main biography and a list of her earlier paintings |
| Louise at Chester | - where Louise made her home and did some of her best work. |
| Louise at Dudley | - front page introduction |
| Louise at Flint | - the images for Henry Taylor's book. |
| Louise in Eastern England | - Lincoln... Derby... Cambridge |
| Louise in London and the South East | - London... Tunbridge Wells... Hastings |
| Louise in Wales and Western England | - Conway... Ludlow... Salisbury |
| Louise Abroad | - Rheims... Venice... and possibly Bruges |
| In preparation: | - Scotland... and North Eastern England |
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