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Measuring Heights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Measuring Heights
ArtistWilliam Powell Frith
Year1842
TypeOil on panel, genre painting
Dimensions22.8 cm × 30.5 cm (9.0 in × 12.0 in)
Location

Measuring Heights is an oil on panel genre painting by the British artist William Powell Frith, from 1842.[1][2]

History and description

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It depicts a scene from the 1766 novel The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith. Mrs Primrose compares the respective heights of her daughter Olivia and Squire Thornhill.[3] Depictions of popular scenes from literature enjoyed great success during the early Victorian era. A few years later William Mulready had a major hit with Choosing the Wedding Gown, inspired by the same novel.[4]

The picture was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1842 held at the National Gallery.[5] The painting is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, having been acquired in 1882 as part of the Jones Bequest by the art collector John Jones.[6]

References

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  1. Bills & Knight p.158-59
  2. Gordon p.122
  3. Victoria and Albert Museum
  4. Chronicle250
  5. Bills & Knight p.viii
  6. Art UK

Bibliography

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  • Bills, Mark & Knight, Vivien (ed.) William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age. Yale University Press, 2006
  • Gordon, Catherine May. British Paintings of Subjects from the English Novel, 1740-1870. Garland, 1988.
  • Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. William Powell Frith: The People's Painter. Bloomsbury, 2019.
  • Wood, Christopher. William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World. Sutton Publishing, 2006.