“The Parish Beadle.” Oil on canvas by David Wilkie (Cults, 1785 – Gibraltar, 1841) Scottish painter, best known for his genre scenes.
Provenance:
2022 Christie’s UK auction
Old master paintings and sculptures
Estimate: €29,581 – €41,413 (£25,000 – £35,000)
2023 Italian private collector
‘The Parish Beadle’ is a full-scale sketch for the painting of the same name in the Tate Gallery, London (inv. no. N00241), painted by Sir David Wilkie between 1820 and 1823.
The beadle was a local church official who performed various civic, educational or ceremonial tasks.
It is a comic scene depicting the excessive zeal of the official arresting a group of itinerant artists. It is clear from the peculiar shape of the adults’ hats that they are Savoyard travellers; with their flamboyant clothes, instruments and animals, they subtly undermine the pompous authority of the robust butler.
Wilkie was not the only one to make fun of this figure; Dickens also repeatedly mocked the deacon in his early works, going so far as to create the character of Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist (1838), probably his best-known satirical portrayal of the local official.
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