Label on verso, lower center: “established 1876 | The Fine Art Society Ltd | 148 New Bond Street London W1Y OJT | No. 5018 | Date November 1971 | James Smetham 1821-1889 | Evening Pasture | Coll: Jos. Jones”; lower right: “Pitt & Scott Ltd | London | [handwritten] Mellon | 6316 | #144 | [typed] 6683”
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 204-205, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
James Smetham’s Arcadian landscape evokes a mythical Golden Age uncorrupted by the ways of urban and industrial life. The idyllic scene, however, belies the deeply religious artist’s troubled state of mind in 1857, following the first of his many breakdowns that resulted in a final collapse in 1877. Long plagued by feelings of isolation, he completely withdrew from the world and rarely spoke again, believing that God had abandoned him.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016