The Donkey Show (1905)

Jacques-Émile Blanche

oil on canvas

Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

Photo credit: Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum

Classification:

Painting

Materials:

Oil, Canvas

Physical Object Description:

Inscribed on back of canvas: j.e. blanche donkey show london 1905 la duchesse de somerset pronunce un speech devant les membres de la societe de costermongers en leurs costumes brodes de boutons de nacre.

Labels:
1) l. helvig emballeur de la direction des beaux arts 26 rue vaneau, paris 7 exposition de londres no. 20 jacques-emile blanche.
2) blanche jacques-emile 19 rue de dr. blanche xvi septemois no. 1

Dimensions:

80.9 x 100.2 cm

Accession Number:

ABDAG002170

Credit:

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 1963

Scheme:

Gift

Ownership history:

Bequeathed by the artist to his son, Georges A. Mevil-Blanche (1902-1975), Offranville; by whom gifted to the Contemporary Art Society, 1947; presented Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, 1963

Relationship:

Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums George A. Mevil-Blanche

Subject:

People

The French artist Jacques-Emile Blanche witnessed the scene depicted in The Donkey Show (1905) at the Annual Festival of Work and Peace in London's Hyde Park. He was struck by the appearance of the 'pearly' children, whom he portrays as downcast and exhausted. In his largey unreliable memoirs, Portraits of a Lifetime: the late Victorian era: the Edwardian pageant: 1870–1914 (1937), Blanche adds that the Festival ended in a working class protest demonstration through the streets of "the strongholds of capitalism'.

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