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  BRITISH
  ARTISTS

  JOHN PETTIE, R.A., H.R.S.A.



  [Illustration: Bonnie Prince Charlie (Cover Page)]



  IN THE SAME SERIES

    BIRKET FOSTER, R.W.S.
    KATE GREENAWAY
    GEORGE MORLAND

  A. AND C. BLACK .  4 SOHO SQUARE .  LONDON, W.


  AGENTS

    AMERICA          THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                     64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

    AUSTRALASIA      OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
                     205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE

    CANADA           THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
                     27 RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO

    INDIA            MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
                     MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
                     309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA



  [Illustration: Portrait of John Pettie]



  JOHN PETTIE
  R.A., H.R.S.A.

  SIXTEEN EXAMPLES IN COLOUR
  OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

  WITH
  AN INTRODUCTION
  BY
  MARTIN HARDIE, B.A., A.R.E.

  [Illustration]

  PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK
  4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON
  MCMX




LIST OF PLATES


                                    OWNER OF ORIGINAL

  1. Portrait of John Pettie        _Tate Gallery_

  2. The Vigil                                "

  3. The Step                       _Kenneth M. Clark, Esq._

  4. A Drum-head Court-Martial      _Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield_

  5. Treason                                  "

  6. Rejected Addresses             _The Rt. Hon. Baron Faber_

  7. Ho! Ho! Old Noll!              _W. J. Chrystal, Esq_.

  8. A Sword-and-Dagger Fight       _Corporation Art Gallery, Glasgow_

  9. Two Strings to her Bow                   "

  [A]10. Bonnie Prince Charlie      _Charles Stewart, Esq._

  11. Disbanded                     _Fine Art Institution, Dundee_

  12. Portrait of Sir Charles
        Wyndham as David Garrick    _Sir Charles Wyndham_

  13. The Clash of Steel            _John Jordan, Esq._

  14. A Storm in a Teacup           _Colonel Harding_

  15. Grandmother's Memories        _Trustees of the late Alex. Rose, Esq._

  16. The Chieftain's Candlesticks  _By permission of the late Mrs. Morten_

        [A] _On the cover_




JOHN PETTIE, R.A.


Like many great painters, John Pettie was of humble origin. Born in
Edinburgh in 1839, he was the son of a tradesman who, having reached
some prosperity, purchased a business in the village of East Linton and
moved there with his family in 1852. The boy was born with art in his
blood, and Nature never intended him for the dull and respectable
vocation to which his father was anxious that he should succeed. More
than once, when despatched on an errand to storeroom or cellar, he was
discovered making drawings on the lid of a wooden box or the top of a
cask, totally oblivious of his journey and its object. A portrait of the
village carrier and his donkey, done when he was a boy of fifteen,
struck neighbouring critics as being almost "uncanny," and overcame even
his father's objections to art as a possible career.

Greatly daring, his mother carried off her son to Edinburgh, a bundle of
drawings beneath his arm, to visit Mr. James Drummond, one of the
leading members of the Royal Scottish Academy. "Much better make him
stick to business," was his verdict, after listening to the mother's
story. But his tone changed when he had seen the drawings. Not a word
was uttered while he turned them over; but then, handing them back, he
said: "Well, madam, you can put that boy to what you like, but he'll die
an artist!"

With every encouragement Pettie now entered the Trustees' Academy, where
he became a student under Robert Scott Lauder, R.S.A. Among Pettie's
fellow-students were George Paul Chalmers, W. Q. Orchardson, J.
MacWhirter, Hugh Cameron, Peter Graham, Tom Graham, and W. McTaggart.
They were destined to form a School which breathed new life into
Scottish art and inaugurated a fresh epoch. All of them gave free
expression to their own personality, but one and all made beautiful
colour their highest ideal.

In 1858 Pettie exhibited his first picture at the Royal Scottish
Academy; and in 1860 made his first venture at the Royal Academy in
London with "The Armourers," which was hung on the line. It was followed
in 1861 by "What d' ye lack, madam?" a picture of the saucy 'prentice in
Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." With the exhibition of this picture his
success was assured, and the encouragement he received led him to leave
the North and seek his future in the greater world of London.

In 1862 we find Pettie sharing a studio in Pimlico with Orchardson and
Tom Graham. A year later, taking C. E. Johnson in their company, they
moved to 37, Fitzroy Square, a house afterwards tenanted by Ford Madox
Brown. I have before me a solemn agreement dated September 18, 1863:
"We, W. Q. Orchardson, J. Pettie, and T. Graham, agree to each other
that we shall pay the following proportions of rent for house, No. 37,
Fitzroy Square (W. Q. Orchardson, L66 13s.; John Pettie, L56 13s.; T.
Graham, L41 13s.), or in these proportions whether of increase or
reduction." Here they lived a happy Bohemian existence, with guinea-pigs
running about the studio floor; their cash-box an open drawer where
bank-notes, gold and silver were mixed in cheerful confusion with
bottles of varnish and tubes of colour; their general factotum one Joe
Wall, a retired prize-fighter, who had been model to Landseer and Frith.

To the two years spent in Fitzroy Square, and to the ten years
following, belong several of Pettie's finest works. His keen perception
of dramatic incident, his fine sense of colour, and his brilliance of
craftsmanship, soon drew the attention they deserved. In 1865 his
"Drum-head Court-Martial" was one of the pictures before which visitors
clustered daily when it hung on the Academy walls. It is a dashing
picture, full of spirit in idea and design; and the artist seldom
painted anything better, or more full of character, than the heads of
those commanders sitting in judgment.

In the following year, at