Object number
M.2022.14
Title
Tossing for Innings
Date
1837 - 1847
Creator
Production notes
fl. 1841-1851
Material
Size
130 x 110 cm
Description
Full length group portrait showing four boys in a grassy landscape dressed in rags. Two boys with makeshift cricket bats are barefooted. The focus of the picture is the cricket bat thrown high in the air. The artist directs the spectator’s focus by creating a triangular pictorial structure with the three boys standing upright and looking upwards. The boy at the tip of the triangle tosses the bat. The forth boy is bent over piling rocks.
Display caption
Tossing for Innings, c.1841
Robert James (flourished 1871-1894)
Oil on canvas
Four boys dressed in rags tossing a cricket bat to see who should bat first. The bat and wicket is of primitive construction, as are the stumps indicated by the piled-up rocks.
Robert James was a Nottingham painter, born at Burtonon-the-Wold in Leicestershire. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 and is best remembered for his portraits of children including Victorian chimney sweeps.
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