Who Painted This? #45

Who painted this? #45

I delight more and more in the type of paintings which rarely get painted by contemporary artists - carefully constructed scenes recording everyday life.

There's an interesting story behind this painting.  I wonder if you can find out what it is.

For those who've not risen to the challenge before please take a minute to read the rules - see below.  The questions which need answering don't stop at "Who painted this?"

How to participate in "Who painted this? #45"

PLEASE make sure you read the rules before posting a comment - and ONLY POST ON THIS BLOG what you think is the answer.
Click this link to read THE RULES for participating in this challenge (this saves having to copy them out for each post!).

In short:

• use your brains not software to find the answer
• search using words only on a database of images
• leave your answer as a comment on this blog
• if correct it will not be published until the next post - which provides the answer
• if wrong it will be published
• do not leave the answer on Facebook!
• the winner - who gets a mention and a link on/from this blog - is the first person to give me a completely correct answer for ALL the things I want to know

Who Painted This #44 - The Answer

Chaucer at the court of Edward III by Ford Madox Brown
Art Gallery of New South Wales - Ground Floor
Screenshot - courtesy of Google Art Project

• Title of the artwork:  Chaucer at the court of Edward III
• Name of the artist who created this artwork: Ford Madox Brown
• Date it was created:  from 1847 until 1851
• Media used: oil on canvas; Height: 3,910 mm (153.94 in). Width: 3,150 mm (124.02 in).
• Where it lives now: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

This is

Geoffrey Chaucer reading the "Legend of Custance" to Edward III and his court, at the palace of Sheen, on the anniversary of the Black Prince's forty-fifth birthday

Ford Madox Ford was never officially a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. but was sympathetic to their ambitions.

This is a large tableau rather than a painting pure and simple.  For one thing there's nothing simple about it!  It also took rather a long time to paint - starting in 1857 and finishing in 1851

It was painted on a white ground using what are described as pure colours.  The lower portion of the painting has been cleaned.

The chap in grey who is pretending to be Chaucer in the painting is actually Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Other members of the Pre-Raphaelite group and associates appear as minor characters in the painting.

While the original is in Australia, a study for the work is owned by The Tate Gallery in London, exact in detail but much reduced in scale.

The Tate Gallery in London possesses a replica of the work, exact in detail but much reduced in scale.

Who guessed correct?

Who painted this #41? Congratulations to Jane Gardiner (Glasgow Painter) who was first with the name of the artist and all the other available details.

Alyson Champ would have been the first if she'd found the original rather than the study!

Others who got all the correct answers - or found the copy - were:

• Bernadette Madden 
• Patrick Connors
• Barbara Jackson 
• Angelique 
• Caroline Alexander is going to kick herself when she realises how near and yet so far she was 
• Fred Bennett - also caught out by the Tate study 
• Colours and Textures - I loved the explanation of how she got there. Those hubbies come in handy!

If you'd like to study how people get the correct answer try studying past challenges which are listed in the Page Who painted this? - at the the top of the Page. Since of the requirements is to say how you found it, you can see the various ways people get to the answer.

Just for the record - anybody who leaves a comment on the page which lists all the "who painted this?" rather than the specific blog post is not counted. You have been warned!