Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A.

Charles Seeley MP (1803–1887), Furzedown Park, Surrey;

His sale, London, Christie's, 29 May 1886, lot 101, 150 guineas, to McLean;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 29 January 1887, lot 104, 140 guineas, to Heath;

Lawrence Whittaker, Accrington, Lancashire;

By whom presented to the Corporation of Accrington, in 1908;

Transferred to Haworth Art Gallery, Haworth Park, Accrington, in 1921;

By whose Trustees sold, London, Phillip's, 22 June 1970, lot 139;

From whom acquired by the Forbes Magazine Collection, New York;

By whom sold ('The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art'), London, Christie’s, 19 February 2003, lot 299;

Where purchased by John Schaeffer (1941–2020), Sydney;

Thence by inheritance.

‘Mr T. Sidney Cooper’s pictures’ in Kentish Gazette, 6 April 1875, p. 5;

H. Blackburn (ed.), Academy Notes, London 1875, p. 24;

Gardeners’ Chronicle, 8 May 1875, p. 590;

‘Royal Academy Exhibition – fourth notice’ in Illustrated London News, vol. 66, no. 1867, 22 May 1875, p. 486;

C. Clement and L. Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century, London 1879, vol. I, p. 154;

T.S. Cooper, My Life, London 1890, vol. II, pp. ix, 190 and 319;

Catalogue of Oil Paintings, Water-Colour Drawings, etc., exh. cat., Accrington 1921, n.p., no. 65;

M. Freeman, 'Kinetic Art in the Forbes Collection', in New Jersey Music & Arts, November 1974, reproduced p. 35;

C. Forbes, The Royal Academy (1837–1901) revisited: Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, exh. cat., New York 1975, pp. 32–33, no. 7, reproduced p. 33;

S. Sartin, Thomas Sidney Cooper, C.V.O., R.A., Leigh-on-Sea 1976, p. 68, no. 215;

B. Stewart, Thomas Sidney Cooper of Canterbury Kent, Rainham 1983, reproduced p. 40;

S.P. Casteras, Virtue Rewarded: Morality and Faith in Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, exh. cat., Kentucky 1988, pp. 12–13, no. 47, reproduced;

R. Beresford, Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, exh. cat., Sydney 2010, p. 72, no. 16, reproduced in colour pp. 20–21 (detail) and p. 73;

K. Westwood, Thomas Sidney Cooper C.V.O., R. A. His Life and Work, Ilminster 2011, vol. I, p. 382, vol. II, reproduced in colour pp. 212–13.

London, Royal Academy, 1875, no. 246;

Accrington, Haworth Art Gallery, opening exhibition, 1921, no. 65 (lent by Lawrence Whittaker in 1908);

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Princeton, Princeton University; Atlanta, The High Museum of Art; Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum; Louisville, The Allen House, The Royal Academy (1837–1901) revisited: Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 1975–1976, no. 7;

Louisville, J.B. Speed Art Museum; New York, The Forbes Magazine Galleries; Memphis, Dixon Gallery and Gardens; Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art; Williamstown, Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute; Naples, Florida, Naples Fine Art Center Galleries; Palm Beach, The Society of the Four Arts; Leeds, Leeds Art Gallery, England, Virtue Rewarded: Victorian Paintings from the Forbes Magazine Collection, 1988–1990, no. 47;

Provo, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Masterworks of Victorian Art from the Collection of John H. Schaeffer, 15 February – 16 August 2008. 

Springville, Springville Museum of Art, The John H. Schaeffer Collection of Victorian and European Art, 26 August 2009 – 28 February 2010;

Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Victorian Visions: Nineteenth Century Art from the John Schaeffer Collection, 20 May – 29 August 2010, no. 16. 

In 1890 Cooper wrote in his reminiscences, My Life; 'To the Exhibition of 1875 I sent three paintings, of which 'Reposing on God's Acre', a scene in a churchyard with sheep, seemed to be the most generally noticed.' ¹ It was one of three paintings by Cooper at the Royal Academy in 1875 and though he would exhibit over 260 pictures at there over a career spanning almost seventy years, Reposing on God's Acre is one of his finest.

The setting for Reposing on God's Acre was a short walk from Cooper’s home, Vernon Holme in the Kent village of Harbledown. The eighteenth century gravestones featured in the painting can still be seen in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels. The symbolic title was taken from an old Saxon phrase ‘God's Acre’ meaning a burial ground which was often used in Victorian poetry and for the titles of paintings. The sheep are a reference to the iconography of Christ and his ‘flock’. It is possible that Cooper was inspired by Edwin Landseer’s The Baptismal Font which had been shown at the Royal Academy three years earlier and shows a flock of sheep gathered around a font.²

Reposing on God's Acre has a prestigious provenance. Its first owner was Charles Seeley (1803–1887), who owned at least three other paintings by Cooper. It was given to the Corporation of Accrington in 1908 and in 1921 it was transferred to the Haworth Museum and Art Gallery where it remained until 1970 when a decision was made to sell a number of paintings from the collection. It was then purchased for the famous collection of Victorian paintings owned by the Forbes Magazine Collection and displayed at Battersea House in London. When the collection was dispersed in 2003, Reposing on God's Acre was bought by John Schaeffer (1941–2020), the Australian art collector and enthusiast who owned a superb collection of Victorian pictures.

¹ Cooper 1890, p. 313.

² Inv. no. RCIN 406026; Oil on canvas, c. 1870, 214.8 x 169.1 cm.