This late 19th-century oil painting by British painter George William Mote (1832-1909) depicts a shepherd and his flock before an extensive view across the Surrey countryside near Guildford. Curiously, the shepherd is probably the artist himself.
The formative years of Mote’s career remain quite a mystery. His parents divorced when he was a child and he lived with his mother who had worked as a housekeeper in their hometown of Barnet. They were not a particularly wealthy family, however records show that he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London in 1857 and was, indeed, living in the capital. He must have therefore found some means through which to begin practising and exhibiting his works. Already at this young age, he was showing considerable talent. A Victorian art critic remarked that he “ought to do well if this be his beginning”.
A move to Worcestershire to receive the patronage of the antiquarian and book collector Sir Thomas Phillips (1792-1872) proved divisive to Mote. He was employed as Phillips’ ‘gardener and caretaker,’ although this might very well have been a phoney position which allowed Mote to paint with Phillips’ patronage. A number of works were listed as being in Phillips’ collection in 1862. Many of these were of the Worcestershire countryside, and indeed, he derived much inspiration from his surroundings. Phillips allowed him and his wife to live in Broadway Tower, a folly with incomparable views of the sweeping Cotswolds.
After receiving Phillips’ patronage, he moved once again to London before finally settling in Surrey. Here the less urbanised, country sprawl offered much for his artistic tendencies to feed off. He continued to exhibit, both at the Royal Academy and at the Suffolk Street Galleries, becoming a recurring feature of each show with his curious landscapes.
In his later life, it seems he became quite an infamous figure in his local area. He was taken to court in the 1880s for threatening someone with foul language. It was recorded that he was a “modern Robinson Crusoe” who, in the summer, “lived in caves, which he had dug out of the sandstone, and in the winter he occupied a studio”.
Given that this piece was painted in the same year as one of his court appearances, 1888, it seems plausible that he’s depicted himself digging into the hillside. He considered the land around this temporary abode to be his own and journalists reported that he would threaten any intruders with an old revolver - often getting into tussles.
It is quite a sorrowful story to read that upon his death in 1909, his body was discovered in a “dirty condition”. The police “stated that they had never seen a man in a more terrible state of personal neglect”. The days of patronage in a glorious folly were long behind him, as were his days as a landscape painter. Nonetheless, his works remain as fascinating examples of a self-taught artist, influenced primarily by the world around him, and the nature he seemingly retreated to in his old age.
Signed in the lower right and held in a period frame, which is probably original.
Learn more about George William Mote in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 35” x 41” / 91cm x 104cm
Year of creation: 1888
Provenance: British, Continental & Russian Pictures (Sale No.5103), Christie’s, London, January 10, 2007, lot 868 / Private collection, UK.
Condition: Frame with various marks and showing its age. Otherwise very presentable.
Artist’s auction maximum: £27,025 for ‘Woman and Child Crossing a Bridge by a Lake’, Oil on canvas, Christie’s, Victorian Pictures, London, 2000 (lot 72).
Our reference: BRV1905
