Pour les Pauvres. 1875. Oil on canvas. 44 7/8 x 64 5/8 inches (114 X 164 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy Sotheby's. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Pour les Pauvres [For the Poor] was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1875, no. 4, the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, and the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880. The painting is a winter scene featuring two Benedictine nuns begging for goods to help feed the poor by collecting donations from richer households in their neighbourhood. The location is likely set in France based on the title. The nuns had previously received handouts of carrots and onions. At present a housemaid is giving them a loaf of bread that she is tipping from a pewter plate into the sack held by the elder of the two nuns. The younger nun is pulling the sleigh being used to carry the offerings they receive.
When the painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1875 it was neither widely nor extensively reviewed. The critic of The Art Journal liked the work: "Pour les pauvres (4), two lusty nuns receiving a gift of bread from a housemaid, and placing the same in a sack lying on the sledge they will presently have to drag through the snow, is from the pencil of W. F. Yeames, A., and is quite equal to his reputation" (217). A critic for The Saturday Review simply stated: "Mr. Yeames, A.R.A. does not rise above genre, 'Pour les Pauvres' (4) has the merit of being carefully considered and steadily painted" (756). Henry Blackburn in his Academy Notes felt the work was well painted and without pathos: "Two comely Sisters of Mercy collecting alms, in kind. They have drawn a wooden sleigh over the snow to the door of a farm-house, somewhere in the Low Countries, where a girl pours loafs into a sack 'pour les pauvres.' A pleasant, carefully painted picture; without pathos" (5).
Bibliography
Blackburn, Henry. Academy Notes Issue I. London: Chatto and Windus, 1875.
British and Continental Paintings. London: Sotheby's, October 3, 2007, lot 67. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/british-continental-paintings-l07704/lot.67.html.
"The Royal Academy." The Saturday Review XXXIX (12 June 1875): 756-57.
"The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Art Journal New Series XIV (1875): 216-20.
Created 2 September 2023