Lot 106: John Dalbiac Luard , 1830-1860 nearing home - some of our english land birds settling on the ship, told us we're nearly home oil on panel, together with a print after Luard of Nearing Home

signed and dated l.r.: J D Luard/ 1858 oil on panel, together with a print after Luard of Nearing Home Quantity: 2

measurements note 22.5 by 30.5 cm.; 8 ¾ by 12 in.

Art Journal, 1858, p. 168;
J. G. Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, two volumes, London, 1899, vol. I, pp. 243-244ENGRAVED:
Lithograph by William Henry Simmons, published by Moore McQueen & Co. in 1863. An impression of this print is sold as part of this lot (see Fig 1)

J. S. Maas & Co., London, where bought by Lady Scott, 14 September 1988, for £7,500

Nearing Home shows a ship returning home from an overseas military campaign and carrying wounded troops. The journey has been long and arduous, and excitement is caused by the appearance on the deck and rigging of English land-birds, an indication that the ship is therefore in its final approach and the invalided soldiers may hope soon to receive medical attention. As the critic of the Art Journal wrote of the painting when shown at the Royal Academy in 1858, and referring to the work's secondary title: 'Such is the proposition (presumed to be an extract from a journal) to be realised on canvas; but there is an episode beyond this. The vessel is a home-bound steamer, on the deck of which lies a wounded officer, affectionately tended by his wife. His attention is directed to one of the birds, which is picking crumbs from a saucer'. The Art Journal had doubts about the authenticity of the subject, because, 'standing by the further bulwark are some wounded soldiers; but this is an error, for rank and file never appear on the quarterdeck'. Nonetheless, it was felt that 'the narrative [...] is simple, perspicuous, and impressive'. This painting presumably represents a memory of the suffering that troops had endured in the course of the Crimean War, which had been concluded at the Peace of Paris in March 1856. Public feeling about the lack of provision and care for the wounded from that war was intense, so the subject may have been chosen by the artist - who had himself been in the forces - as a means of drawing attention to their suffering. The previous year - 1857 - Luard had exhibited at the Royal Academy an analogous Crimean subject entitled Welcome Home, now in the National Army Museum. Sir David Scott believed that the seated figure smoking a cigar on the left side was intended to represent John Thadeus Delane, editor of The Times from 1841 to 1877, who drew attention to the maladministration of the war and government incompetence, as well as the inadequate medical aid provided to troops, by publishing a series of articles describing conditions in military hospitals by the Times war correspondent William Howard Russell. Pledged to 'investigate truth and to apply it on fixed principles to the affairs of the world' (Times editorial, 6 February 1852), Delane guided the paper to the zenith of its political influence.

In October 1854 Florence Nightingale accepted the position of superintendent of nurses for the English General Military Hospitals, sent out to the war zone with thirty-eight nurses by the government as an attempt to placate outraged public opinion about the conduct of the war. It seems likely that the female nurse in Luard's painting, although thought by the Art Journal to represent the soldier's wife, is intended as a symbolic portrait of Nightingale or of one of her team of nurses.

The painter John Dalbiac Luard came from a military family, but with artistic leanings. His father, John Luard, had been Lieutenant-Colonel of the 10υth and 16υth Lancers, and had served in the the Penisula war and at Waterloo, and later in India. John Luard compiled a History of the Dress of the British Soldier from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, which was published in 1833 and which he illustrated with lithographs after his own drawings. When a young man, John Dalbiac Luard had served as an officer in the 82υnd Foot. In the mid-1850s he was a friend of John Everett Millais, whose son described how this ex-soldier was 'so devoted [...] to Art, that in 1853 he left the service and took up painting as a profession. Sharing with Millais a studio in Langham Chambers, which they occupied together for some years - in fact nearly down to the time of poor Luard's death in 1860 - he gave himself up to military subjects, of which "The Welcome Arrival" and "Nearing Home" were exhibited at the Royal Academy and subsequently engraved' (see Literature).