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The Death of Chatterton: one of Henry Wallis’s best-known works, now at the Tate Gallery
On December 20 1916, in a house at 1, Walpole Road, Croydon, an 86-year-old man, frail and almost blind, died.
That house where the old man lived out his final days has long been demolished, but his legacy lives on. Remembered in the world of art and ceramics, as well as by Egyptologists, Henry Wallis spent many years living in and around Croydon. Wallis’s is another name to add to the plethora of artists associated with Croydon including George Handel Lucas, James Sant, John Schetky, Joseph Nash, Theodore Fielding and George Paice.
Wallis was a resident of Woodbury Cottage, Norwood, from 1880 to 1895, and lived in Beauchamp Road, Crystal Palace, from 1895 to 1907. There was then a move to Sutton, before finally moving to Walpole Road.
Wallis was born in London on February 21 February 1830 under difficult circumstances for that era: his father’s name and occupation are unknown. When, in 1845, his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather’s surname.
Portrait of the artist as an old man: Croydon resident Henry Wallis
Wallis showed in his young days that he was a talented artist. When he was 18, he was admitted as a probationer to the Royal Academy, enrolling in their Painting School in March 1848. He lived in Paris for a while to further develop his artistic skills, studying at the Charles Gleyre’s atelier and at the world-famous and influential Academie des Beaux Arts.
Today, however, Wallis’ recognition and reputation in the artistic world has been largely reduced to two paintings.
The Death of Chatterton, which Wallis first displayed at the Royal Academy in 1856, is today the Tate Gallery. It was a superbly constructed painting which the critic John Ruskin described as “faultless and wonderful”. The vibrant colours and the attention to symbolic detail cemented Wallis’s place in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
The painting was an instant success with the public, despite its macabre theme. Chatterton was a student who poisoned himself in despair. Although Chatterton was made to be a sort of romantic hero, he was in fact a fraud who had produced a series of mock medieval writings, passing them off as the work of a 15th-century writer named Thomas Rowley.
The model who Wallis used when he sketched the scene for the painting was the novelist, George Meredith. It proved to be a significant choice in more ways than one. Meredith’s pose proved to be a real talking point when the painting was completed.
Scandalised: Mary Meredith eloped with Wallis, but it did not end well
During this time, Wallis was introduced to Meredith’s wife, Mary. She was the daughter of the novelist and poet Thomas Love Peacock. Within two years Wallis and Mary Meredith had eloped together. They toured Wales, visited Capri and at the beginning of 1858 she gave birth to their son, Harold. Their story ended tragically though.
On their return to London, Wallis abandoned Mary, and Meredith took back the son, Arthur, that they had together during their marriage. Mary spiralled into misery and loneliness, her father unable to help her. Late in 1861, she died of kidney failure. Neither Meredith, Wallis nor Peacock attended her funeral.
Wallis’ other painting which is still admired today is The Stone Breaker, painted in 1857 and displayed at the RA the following year.
This painting was a depiction of a working man slumped in the fading light, crushed as much by his poverty as by his back-breaking work. Ruskin’s critique of this work was that he judged it to be “the picture of the year but narrowly missing out on being a first-rate on any year”. Today the picture hangs in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
A Sculptor’s Workshop: Wallis’s portrayal of the creation of a bust of the bard is now owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company
In all his paintings, Wallis strove to be as historically accurate as possible. Having visited Stratford on his return from France he depicted two scenes related to Shakespeare. One was entitled, The Room Where Shakespeare Was Born, with the detail so deftly brushed that one observer commented that “you can see every nail in the bare wooden floor”.
Another Shakespeare painting, now owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, was called A Sculptor’s Workshop, which shows an imaginative creation of the constructing of The Bard’s memorial bust.
Well noted: Wallis was known for the meticulous detail and research for his paintings
From 1854 until 1877, Wallis exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy almost every year. After this time, he became a member of the Old Water Colour Society, swapping his oils for a different medium. He composed his watercolours with great use of colour. He exhibited more than 80 works at the Old Water Colour Society gallery and club in Piccadilly.
Using watercolour meant that Wallis could paint more easily on his travels. This was important as he took up new challenges. In the late 1870s he undertook his first trip to Egypt and continued to visit archaeological sites in the Middle East for several years. He became friends with Flinders Petrie, the renowned Egyptologist, and acompanied him on many exploratory digs.
Wallis painted Petrie admiring a find at the Ramesseum, Western Thebes, the memorial temple of the Pharoah, Rameses II. Several other paintings were produced by Wallis on his Egyptian expeditions, including one in 1899 entitled A Do’ruck and Chool’leh Merchant, Cairo. Wallis chose to paint a stall with two locals selling a variety of pots to compliment his other passion, collecting ceramics.
A Do’ruck and Chool’leh Merchant, Cairo: one of Wallis’s paintings from his time exploring antiquities in the Middle East
Wallis became quite the expert on various historical objects. He was then able to develop a second career as an art dealer and collector. He had a particular interest in Italian and Islamic ceramics, writing extensively on that subject. He also collected oriental rugs, manuscripts and fine art.
Accurate record: Wallis copied the paintings that they found in the pharoahs’ tombs
From the 1880s, his expertise was such that he became an intermediary in negotiating the purchase of various objects for the South Kensington Museum, what we know today as the Victoria and Albert. It is largely down to Wallis’s knowledge and drive that the museum today holds such an extensive collection of maiolica, Italian pottery from the Renaissance period, and Islamic pottery.
After his death, the majority of Wallis’s ceramics collection was divided between the V and A and the British Museum.
Wallis also helped to record the ancient murals on the walls of Egyptian tombs. He took part in an excavation organised by Sir Francis Grenfell, who in the 1880s was the commander of the army in Egypt at a time when it was under British occupation.
They uncovered the rock tomb of Prince Si-renput at Aswan which had been constructed around 1900BC. In 1887, Wallis completed a painting of what the tomb mural looked like, with Si-reput sitting in front of a table full of offerings to the gods, while his son, Anku, is seen standing on the other side of the table holding a lotus flower.
In his lifetime, Wallis was acknowledged as a talented artist, especially involving his favourite style, chiaroscuro, which was the way he treated light and shade. He forged a second career in antiques, when many might have been tempted to reach for his pipe and slippers.
For someone who lived in Croydon for more 30 years, Wallis’ artistic merits deserve another local airing.
- David Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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