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By the Way Template.Qxd Number 67 March 2017 Painters and Painting – Part I Our new series of Wodehouse references for the March By The Way concerns Painters and Paintings. You will find appearances for both genuine artists and paintings, as well as fictional ones from the author’s imagination. THE ARTISTS Breamworthy, Messmore Barbizon School Perhaps a name more familiar to readers as the artist A group of painters named after the village on the painting Empress of Blandings than as the outskirts of Fontainebleau, whose members included pseudonym of the imposter Bill Lister. Daubigny, Diaz, Jacque, Robichaux, and Rousseau. (Full Moo n) (A Pelican at Blanding s) Cardinal, Joe A wannabe-painter, biding his time until his trustee Bennison, Jeff (also known as ‘Smith’) had to disgorge his inheritance on his 25th birthday. An ambitious progenitor of comic strips who, like (‘Life with Freddie’ from Plum Pi e) Holbein, Michelangelo and Tintoretto, might well find it difficult to reap untold riches from their sale. Claude (Sunset at Blanding s) The artist hero of a novel of stearine sentimentality by Emily Ann Mackintosh, dealing with his Beamish, Victor adventures with a pure young English girl. A commercial artist who drew the picture of the O- (A Damsel in Distres s) SO-EESI piano-player in the advertisement pages of Piccadilly magazine. Constable, John (1776–1837) (‘Ukridge’s Accident Syndicate’ from Ukridg e) A copy by Sidney Biffen of one of his paintings could be found at Shipley Hall. Beverley, Alan (Something Fish y) The subtle artist who painted and sold a work entitled ‘Child and Cat’. Corcoran, Bruce (‘Corky’) (‘The Man Upstairs’ from The Man Upstair s) An impecunious portrait painter and friend of Gussie Mannering-Phipps, who proved for himself Biffen, Stanley that ‘there is always a way’. His somewhat disastrous A copy he made of a Constable painting could be attempt to paint a portrait of his uncle’s heir found hanging at Shipley Hall. eventually resulted in a new cartoon strip, ‘The (Something Fish y) Adventures of Baby Blobbs’, for the comic section of the Sunday Star . Bingley, Lancelot (‘Leave It to Jeeves’ from My Man Jeeve s) A rising young artist with a private income and an IQ about equivalent to that of a retarded child of Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille (1796–1875) seven. His erstwhile fiancée, Gladys Wetherby, A painting from his Italian period was displayed at arranged for him to paint her uncle. Claines Hall. (‘A Good Cigar Is a Smoke’ from Plum Pi e) (Quick Servic e) Daubigny (Charles-François, 1817–1878) Boielle, Paul Realistically, a member of the Barbizon School. A waiter in Bredin’s Parisian Café and Restaurant (A Pelican at Blanding s) who had an attic studio in which he was engaged on painting a great picture – for which he had yet to de Hooch, Pieter (1629–1984) find a buyer. Van Meegeren started his career of forgery by (‘Rough-Hew Them How We Will’ copying one of de Hooch’s paintings. from The Man Upstair s) (Something Fish y) By The Way Number 67 Diaz (Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña, Fothergill, Everard 1807–1876) Like Clarence Yeardsley, he was an artist who was A member of the Barbizon School. inordinately proud of his Jocund Spring . Unlike his (A Pelican at Blandings ) father and Clarence, though, his work was good enough to be exhibited at the Tate. Dircks, Jan (1610–1652) (‘Jeeves Makes an Omelette’ According to Mortimer Bayliss in Something Fishy , from A Few Quick One s) either Dircks or Paul Muller made a copy of a Vermeer painting which could be found hanging at Gainsborough, Thomas (1727–1788) Shipley Hall. Bayliss added that as both of them were The artist who apparently painted both ‘The Girl in pupils of Van Meegeren, nobody was sure whose it Blue’ and her sister in green. was. Mr Bayliss seems to have been swanking to Lord (The Girl in Blu e) Uffenham, though, since Van Meegeren was not One of his paintings was stolen from a house in born until 1889, by which time Dircks had been Marsham-in-the-Vale. dead for over 200 years. (‘Jeeves Makes an Omelette’ (Something Fish y) from A Few Quick One s) Farringdon, Belinda (‘Bunny’) A copy by Wilfred Robinson of another Living in South Kensington, she was the commercial Gainsborough could be found at Shipley Hall. artist fiancée of Johnny Pearce. (Something Fish y) (Cocktail Tim e) It was considered that a thief who stole a Ferguson, Archie Gainsborough would not also steal one by Lord A futurist painter who had studied art in Paris. His Wetherby. ‘The Coming of Summer’ was ‘all dots and splashes, (Uneasy Mone y) with a great eye staring out of the middle of the Gibson, Charles Dana (1876–1944) mess’. The Clarion carried news of its supposed American artist who created the ‘Gibson Girl’. purchase by Mr Bracket on its front page, but in fact, (Summer Lightnin g) after failing to sell a single canvas in three years, Archie changed tack and developed the Doughnut Gilpin, Archie Family strip cartoon for the New York Gazette . An artist working for the Mammoth Publishing (‘Concealed Art’ from Strand Magazin e) Company. (Service with a Smil e) Finch, George An American from East Gilead, Idaho, who used his Holbein, Hans, the Younger (c.1497–1543) legacy to finance his achievement of being the worst An illustrious artist with a familiar name, but one painter ever to hit New York. who might have had difficulty getting rich by selling (The Small Bachelo r) comic strips. (Sunset at Blanding s) Ford, Mrs Nesta An amateur artist whose painting of her son, Ogden, Hollister, William Quackenbush caused Lord Mountry to imitate one ‘who turns no An American who trained as an artist before coming more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend to the UK and staying here, working as an assistant doth close behind him tread’. at the Gish Galleries. (The Little Nugge t) (Something Fish y) Jacque (Charles-Emile, 1813–1894) Fothergill, Edward A member of the Barbizon School. Edward’s father and, like Sir Matthew Yeardsley, an (A Pelican at Blanding s) extremely bad artist, who maintained an inexplicable attachment to his Venus , even after Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry (1802–1873) presenting it to his son Everard as a wedding There was speculation that his ‘Stag at Bay’, if present. augmented by horn-rimmed spectacles, might have (‘Jeeves Makes an Omelette’ resembled Elmer Chinnery. from A Few Quick One s) (Summer Moonshin e) Page 2.
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