George Lance (1802-1864)

George Lance (1802-1864)

The Stable Door

49 x 54cm / 79 x 73cm Hand Carved Original Frame. 

George Lance: Victorian Master of Still Life.  In his seminal work Victorian Painting (1966), Graham Reynolds stated that the revival of still life painting, as an artist's main preoccupation, was effected almost single-handedly by George Lance. Over one hundred years earlier J.M.W. Turner had expressed the view that Lance was one of the three greatest colourists of his era. 

Lance was born in Essex. A conversation with Charles Landseer, who Lance happened upon in the British Museum, one day, led to his becoming a pupil of the well known Benjamin Haydon, a huge figure in the world of Victorian painting at that time and with whom Lance stayed for the next seven years while also studying at the Royal Academy. 

A coincidental choice by Lance to paint fruit and flowers as an exercise attracted the notice of Sir George Beaumont and this success led him to paint another which he sold to the Earl of Shaftesbury. He went on to sell works to the Duke of Bedford as decorations for a summer-house at Woburn Abbey. From thereon he decided to devote himself to still-life painting.