Beschreibung:

Artist: Erskine Nicol RSA ARA (1825-1904) Title: Puzzled (1859) Signature: signed lower right and dated 1859 Medium: oil on canvas Size: 25½ x 20.40cm (10 x 8in) Framed Size: 35 x 29.8cm (13.8 x 11.7in) Provenance: Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} While Erskine Nicol is celebrated for depicting, in humorous genre paintings, a range of human foibles and failings, the central theme of his art was serious. Spending extended periods in Ireland both during and after the Great Famine, he witnessed the social effect of the displacement of thousands ... Read more Erskine Nicol Lot 71 - 'Puzzled (1859)' Estimate: €1,500 - €2,000 While Erskine Nicol is celebrated for depicting, in humorous genre paintings, a range of human foibles and failings, the central theme of his art was serious. Spending extended periods in Ireland both during and after the Great Famine, he witnessed the social effect of the displacement of thousands of rural families through starvation and eviction. Although cloaked within a veil of humour, Nicol revealed the hardships suffered by the poorest sections of society, identifying illiteracy and poor education as one of the root causes of poverty. Emotions such as disappointment, puzzlement and dejection are frequently portrayed in his work. In The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulty, a man struggles to read a poster pasted on a wall upside down, while in his most famous painting, Both Puzzled, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1866, a child and a teacher are equally perplexed at the mathematical conundrum 'if wanst nought be nothin', then twice nought must be somethin'. The same theme of perplexity informs this earlier work, Puzzled (1859), where a man walking along a country road encounters a milestone inscribed 'Cork XX' (rather than 'Cork 20 miles') and is unable to read the Roman numerals. Dressed in a short jacket and moleskin breeches, wearing a battered hat, the traveller is a stereotypical Victorian image of an Irish migrant worker. With a clay pipe tucked into his hat band, he carries a leather satchel, and beside him on the ground is his 'bundle'. In the background, a winding road stretches away into the distance. In this painting, Nicol summarised the realities of life for many of the thousands of displaced Irish farmers who migrated to cities in search of work. Born in 1825 in Leith, Scotland, Erskine Nicol was initially apprenticed to a house painter, before studying art at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh, where his teachers included Thomas Duncan and William Allen For a short time, he was employed as a drawing master at Leith Academy. Moving to Dublin in 1845, he worked for four years as a teacher with the Department of Science and Art, and also painted portraits. He specialized thereafter in Irish subject matter, particularly scenes of everyday life in the country. Nicol was a Realist painter; rarely sentimentalising his subjects. In 1850 he returned to Edinburgh, and the following year was elected an associate member of the Royal Scottish Academy. However, following the example of his compatriot David Wilkie who had travelled in Ireland in the 1830's, Nicol continued to make painting trips to Clonava, in Co. Westmeath, where he had built a studio. The sketches he made in Ireland were then worked up into finished paintings on his return to Scotland. In 1862 Nicol moved to London and six years later was made an Associate of the Royal Academy. He also exhibited at the RHA. Sixteen paintings by him were used as illustration in the 1909 book Tales of Irish Life and Character. Peter Murray, May 2023