Lot 105: Attributed to Charles Rossiter , b. 1827 the escape oil on canvas

oil on canvas

measurements note 71 by 102 cm.; 28 by 40 in.

John Hadfield, Every Picture Tells a Story: Images of Victorian Life, 1985, p. 76, illustrated p. 77

Christie's, London, 13 May 1977, lot 55;
J. S. Maas & Co., London, where bought by Lady Scott, 17 October 1984 for £8,500

"He has come a cropper on the turf - see the copy of Bell's Life just visible below his knee (the favourite, if not the only, reading of Soapy Sponge, I seem to remember) and is fleeing from his creditors, making the traditional escape to the Continent, (Calais as a rule) with his attractive young wife, who will soon be regretting, if she has not already done so, having married a compulsive gamber. The two members of the crew are looking to see if they are being pursued. The envelope on the wife's lap with its red penny Victorian stamp is a clue which we can interpret as we please. Did the letter in it contain news that made them realise that they had better clear out of the country as soon as possible? Or is it a passionate appeal from her parents to leave the man? Unlikely perhaps for she would be likely to conceal such a letter. But why is she clutching it like that? And is the mud on the man's boots & trousers meant to show that they had to get off in a hurry? At least they had time to pack all their luggage on which they are sitting. The two main figures are admirably painted. He is exactly right - a typical worthless Victorian ne'er-do-well, who has run through a fortune, (perhaps his wife's) & has never done a stroke of honest work in his life - the 'villain' of a Whyte Melville novel. The wife is sad & attractive enough to inspire pity. Thank goodness there are no children to complicate matters! What will their future be? Thank goodness the sea is calm.'
Sir David Scott
This is a painting which will repay further research, both in terms of its attribution and its iconography. The traditional attribution is to Charles Rossiter, a painter of genre subjects known for only one painting entitled To Brighton and Back for 3/6, in Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Its title may be an invention, although one that conveys the main theme of the subject. The work may be recognised as dating from the late 1850s or early 60s on the evidence of the styles of dress. Its narrative subject is truly fascinating, and once again provides an instance of mid-Victorian artists finding themselves absorbed by an aspect of the society in which they lived, and treating the moral dramas of modern life. A young woman and her disreputable looking husband are seen on the deck of a ship. Beside them a helmsman glances back at an unseen pursuer, while a ship's mate watches through a telescope. The couple give no outward indication of concern, but each seems wrapped in their own anxiety about the situation they find themselves in. She wears a wedding ring, and has perhaps been only recently married. As Lindsay Errington has suggested in the catalogue for the exhibition Sunshine and Shadow (see Exhibited), the placing of a marlin spike on the deck - a device used for splicing rope - may have been intended as a pun on their having been 'spliced'. Also littered about are clues to the style of life that the male figure has previously led: a copy of Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, a journal read by racing men; a bundle of hunting whips, indicative of his own sporting pursuits; and a cash box, presumably stolen or perhaps containing money that had come as a marriage settlement. Although much remains uncertain, it may be concluded that he is a reprobate who, despite his bad character, has persuaded the young woman, who may be innocent and naïve, to link her fate with his. The life that he has led has caught up with him, and so he and his bride are forced to abscond carrying with them their few portable possessions. Whoever the artist may have been, it seems likely that he or she had had sight of Ford Madox Brown's Last of England, which had been first exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1856. Various of the motifs of that painting are seen here.