The Proposal, by Thomas Armstrong. c.late 1860s. Oil on canvas; 9½ x 13½ inches (24.2 x 34.3 cm). Private collection.
This work is reminiscent of similar works by Albert Moore but in this case the figures are in costumes of the late 18th or early 19th century rather than classical garb. A young man proposes marriage to his beloved as they sit on a sofa. Figures of Cupid can be seen as part of the decoration of the wall situated behind them. To the left are flowers in a large oriental vase and a simple rug on the floor – both features very reminiscent of the work of his friend Moore. The "chalky surface' handling of oil paint is also reminiscent of Moore, such as found in his A Venus of 1869. Armstrong has also placed his initials within a cartouche, which is what Moore and Whistler were doing at this same time.
As a boy Armstrong frequently spent his holidays visiting his mother's sisters, the Miss Evans, who lived at Staleybank, a country house near Stalybridge, which in turn is close to Manchester. In the attic of the house were trunks and boxes full of costumes of the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. In later years these costumes were much used by Armstrong in his pictures and they may have influenced his decision to turn to subjects of that period (Lamont 2).
Sidney Colvin in writing of Armstrong's work in The Portfolio discussed Armstrong's desire to paint works with the refinement of the period of the 18th century:
There is a class of painters among us who, exhibiting year by year, never draw crowds or make sensations with their work, but nevertheless come insensibly to occupy positions of peculiar respect in the eyes of the more careful order of judges. To that class the subject of the present sketch belongs…He has shown himself of those who see the raison d'être of a picture by no means its subject-interest, but altogether in its pictorial aspect and harmony. Mr. Whistler and Albert Moore are the two English contemporaries – both of them men of genius and breakers of new paths in our school, – with whose work that of Mr. Armstrong is most in sympathy…Mr. Armstrong does not adopt so extreme a method of these two; neither are his subjects so remote from home and from every day as those of the one, with his specifically Japanese inspiration and radiant colour-dreams, or of the other, with his monumental instinct, and inspiration specifically Greek. Indeed, he is as far as possible from being the follower of any individual leader. His modern range of decorative motives, as well as the quiet and almost Quakerly harmony of his favourite combinations in color, are altogether personal to himself. What he does endeavour is to make every picture (that which in truth every picture ought to be) a careful and calculated object of pleasure for the eye, in the arrangement of its forms and colors, neglecting at the same time no natural fact that he can manage, but choosing the subdued and delicate dealings of nature rather than those which thrust discords or brandish difficulties in the face of the spectator… For surroundings, for motive, for costume, Armstrong has been apt to turn towards the England of the eighteenth century - as who would not turn of such as care for simple refinement and reserve in outward things, for a natural and demure inventiveness in the accessories of life that is full of inexpressible charm? This is not the place for an apology of that century, which its successor has from many sides flouted and disowned with such a blatant and ignorant ingratitude; besides, the instinct of artists has in our day led more than one or two of them to do their part towards its rehabilitation, at least, on the side of its home look and garniture, and the loveable circumstances with which it invested its ladyhood and childhood - exquisite these if ever there were exquisite on earth. But passing this, let it merely be noted how the sober yet fanciful sentiment of hundred years ago is what this artist inclines do in matters of dress and furniture; not straining it or making it his main point, but using it, and catching at the suggestion whatever is like it in the contemporary life… In all of these works it is just to say that purpose holds more place than power, and that the sedulous and guarded pursuit of admirable aims has not yet brought the artist behind the stage subject to shortcomings, or put his work in possession of the look of ripe or plenary power and confidence. In the meantime, and at the stage where he is, his painting, with its conscientious care and balance, its tenderness and reserve, its aim at style and at pictorial charm, is of a kind on which the English school, more than another, has good reason to congratulate itself. [65-67]
This picture was first owned by George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, an artist in his own right and a friend and patron to many within the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Armstrong and Howard were friends of long standing.
Bibliography
Colvin, Sidney. "English Painters of the Present Day. XXIII – Thomas Armstrong." The Portfolio II (1871): 65-67.
Lamont, L. M. Thomas Armstrong, C.B. A Memoir. London: Martin Secker, 1912.
Created 19 March 2023