The Cast Shoe. 1890. Oil on canvas. 37 3/4 x 54 inches (83.2 x 137.2 cm). Collection of Tate Britain, accession no. NO1597. Image kindly released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The Cast Shoe was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890, no. 19, and purchased by the trustees of the Chantrey Bequest for presentation to the Tate Gallery. Donato Esposito has described this work as follows: "Depicting a rural scene of a horse in need of a change of shoe, outside an inn beside a ferry crossing, the work encapsulates many aspects of his varied career: exquisite colouring, lively observation, and simple but engaging narrative" (155). The man holding the draft horse, possibly a Boulonnais, may to be the local squire because he appears much better dressed than the local rural people who surround him. Macbeth appears to have had a fascination with ferry crossings and country inns and included them in many of his pictures. The subject of the cast shoe might have been inspired by the etching Macbeth made previously in 1887 of G. H. Mason's painting The Cast Shoe, although the compositions are vastly different.
Contemporary critics did not extensively review The Cast Shoe, other than to generally criticise its purchase by the Chantrey Bequest. F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum certainly did not feel it merited being purchased: "The Council of the Royal Academy must have on more than one occasion sorely vexed the spirit of Chantrey when they spent the money he bequeathed for the encouragement of art of the finest kind upon pictures of a popular character, which were sure to find purchasers, while learned and beautiful art went a-begging. It cannot be imagined for a moment that Mr. Macbeth's picture, The Cast Shoe (19), is above the level of popular taste, and certainly Chantrey would never have bought it. Nevertheless the Academicians have purchased as an example of fine art of the day this bright and sunny sketch of a lumbering cart-horse standing for examination by a smith, while other persons look on, including one of those buxom country wenches no one paints better than Mr. Macbeth. The charms of the picture lie in its gay illumination and colouration; its shortcomings are thinness, defective drawing, weak modelling, and looseness of touch throughout" (645).
The critic for The Builder echoed this opinion: "What induced the Academy to purchase under the Chantry [sic] bequest Mr. Macbeth's painting of The Cast Shoe (19) we cannot understand" (355). M. H. Spielmann in The Magazine of Art wrote: "Mr. Macbeth, whose picture of The Cast Shoe has been purchased under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest – presumably on account of the brilliancy of the sky, but for no other reason I can think of" (258). The reviewer for The Spectator actually went so far as to call the painting bad: "In this same connection may be mentioned Mr. Macbeth's The Cast Shoe (19). A picture is not necessarily bad because it is bought with the Chantrey money. This one is bad, and what is proudly called our 'Luxembourg' is to process it" (695). In retrospect, however, the painting appears to be a well painted and a well-constructed composition, which makes one wonder why there was so much vehement opposition to it by critics at the time.
Bibliography
"Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator LXIV (May 17, 1890): 693-95
Esposito, Donato. Frederick Walker and the Idyllists. London: Lund Humphries, 2017, Chapter 6, 155.
"Further Notes on Academy Pictures." The Builder LVIII (May 17, 1890): 355-57.
Spielmann, Marion H. "Current Art. The Royal Academy. –II." The Magazine of Art XIII (1890): 253-60.
Stephens, Frederic George." Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3264 (May 17, 1890): 644-47.
Created 1 June 2023