![The Morning Post [Greeting the Postman]](2.jpg)
The Morning Post [Greeting the Postman], by Robert Walker Macbeth R.A., R.W.S., R.E., R.I., R.O.I. (1848-1910). 1877. Watercolour on paper; 57/8 x 81/4 inches (14.8 x 20.8 cm). Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. P.52-1935.
The Morning Post was exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water Colour (Old Water-Colour Society) in 1877, no. 272. An etching of this subject was shown in in the Dudley Gallery's Black-and White Exhibition in 1878, no. 587. This work is in watercolour, a medium that Macbeth used successfully but less frequently than his Idyllist colleagues Walker, Pinwell, and North. The scene depicted is of a woman in a black dress with a white apron, likely the mother but possibly a servant, outside the front door of a large house who reaches for a letter delivered by a postman mounted on a grey horse. In the doorway of the house a group of five children are eagerly awaiting the news the letter brings. The season is winter with snow on the ground and the postman is warmly dressed against the cold. Large barren trees dominate the right of the composition. Through the ground floor storey window of the house a fire can be seen blazing at the hearth.
![The Morning Post [Greeting the Postman], detail](2b.jpg)
![The Morning Post [Greeting the Postman], detail](2c.jpg)
Closer views of the children at the door (left) and the young woman anxious for the letter (middle).
When the work was shown at the O.W.S. in 1877 a reviewer for The Architect complimented its colour: "R. W. Macbeth's Morning Post (272), an exquisite piece of colour, which we prefer to his more popular Ghost Story" (284). A wood engraving, similar to but simplified in its composition, and cut by William Harcourt Hooper, appeared as an illustration to "Miss Charlotte's Pride" in The Sunday Magazine, Christmas number, 1872, page 24. A working proof for this illustration is in the collection of the British Museum, registration no. 1912,1227.159. The illustration shows only the woman running to meet the mailman on horseback and omits the view of the children at the front door of the house.
Bibliography
"Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1877." The Architect XVII (5 May 1877): 283-84.
Created 1 June 2023