A brother and sister rest in a rocky landscape and play with a baby. Engraving by R.C. Bell after W. Mulready. R.A.

  • Mulready, William, 1786-1863.
Reference:
27387i
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About this work

Description

"This painting is a repetition, with variations, of an earlier work, 'Brother and sister' which Mulready exhibited in 1837. In the 'Young brother' a small boy, perched on the arm of his sister or mother, is about to have his ear playfully pinched by his elder brother. When the picture was exhibited in 1857 critics read the subject in this way. However, Mulready's title is ambiguous, for it could refer to the relationship between the woman and the child. The erotic tension which seems to exist betweem the youth and the girl suggests that the principle theme is in fact concerned with first love and courtship."--Tate online catalogue, September 2004

Publication/Creation

London : James S. Virtue

Physical description

1 print : engraving ; image 24.1 x 19.4 cm

Lettering

Brother and sister W. Mulready, R.A. pinxt. R.C. Bell, sculpt. From the Vernon Gallery.

References note

Carole Reeves (ed.), A cultural history of the human body: in the age of enlightenment, Oxford: Berg, 2010, p. 211

Reference

Wellcome Collection 27387i

Reproduction note

After the painting in Tate Britain, called "The young brother", bequeathed by Robert Vernon. However the lettering on this print ("Brother and sister: on pinching the ear") is the same as the title of an earlier version of the painting, given by John Sheepshanks to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1857

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